A Stduy on the Standardization of the Description of Orthopedic Diseases for Electroic Data Processing System (EDPS)

Park, Il Hyung; Jung, Bang Sung

Abstract

It is now well-known that the electronic data processing system(EDPS: computer) is very useful for indexing, sorting, verification, and so on. And a few orthopedics in Korea are processing informations with computers for their medical records respeetively. But since there are no established principles on the description of orthopedic diseases, a computer programmer unfamiliar with medical terms is poor in electronic processing for medical records. After processing with an IBM computer for several years, it has come to our attention that we have a need for standardization of the description of orthopedic diseases for EDPS. Based largely on the International Classification of Diseases(ICD-9th), we propose the following: 1. Diseases should be written in English, and whether it be capital letter or small letter does not matter. 2. Description of the disease should be in order of title, region of the body, cause or present status, and side of the body. The sequence may be changed without problem, but only the noun form should be used. It is also recommended that the key words in articles be defined. 3. Abbreviated forms should be avoided. If inevitable, the abbreviation should be used consistently from the first to the 1ast. 4. Connection with other types of medical records such as medical insurance system by registering the code number of the International Classification of Disesaes at the end of the description or on another line.