Table 2.
Appraisal of terminologies for allergy using desiderata
| Criteria | SNOMED CT | NDF-RT | RxNorm* | UNII | MedDRA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Content coverage | |||||
| Food allergens | *** | ** | * | ** | * |
| Drug allergens | *** | *** | **** | *** | * |
| Environmental allergens | *** | ** | * | ** | * |
| Reaction to allergen | **** | ** | *** | ||
| Severity of reaction | **** | * | |||
| Episode of reaction | **** | ||||
| No known allergies | *** | ||||
| Concept orientation | **** | **** | **** | **** | **** |
| Formal definitions | **** | **** | **** | ||
| Multiple granularities | |||||
| Substance | *** | *** | **** | **** | * |
| Reaction | **** | * | ** | ||
| Vocabulary structure | |||||
| Polyhierarchy | **** | **** | * | ||
| Pre-coordinated terms† | **** | ** | |||
| Support for post-coordination | *** | ||||
| Subset capability | **** | ** | ** | * | * |
| Maintainability | **** | **** | **** | **** | **** |
*RxNorm contains multiple source terminologies. For this analysis, only RxNorm itself is considered (ie, SAB=RxNorm).
†Capability of terminology in specifying pre-coordinated descriptive terms for allergy (ie, penicillin allergy).
Likert Scale: four stars, excellent; three stars, good; two stars, fair; one star, poor; zero stars, no fulfillment.
MedDRA, Medication Dictionary for Regulatory Activities; NDF-RT, National Drug File–Reference Terminology; SNOMED CT, Systemized Nomenclature of Medical Clinical Terms; UNII, Unique Ingredient Identifier.