Abstract:
Systems, methods, and computer program products for managing health data dictionary relationships. The relationships between concepts in the health data dictionary are very complex. The relationship manager searches for relationships, adds new relationships to the health data dictionary, updates existing relationships, discovers missing, duplicated or inappropriate relationships, checks the relationships for completeness and redundancy, and fixes errors in the relationships. The relationship manager ensures that the content of the health data dictionary is more complete and more accurate.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0001]    1. The Field of the Invention  
           [0002]    The present invention relates to databases and to systems and methods for managing related data in a database. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems and methods for managing relationships between concepts included in a health data dictionary database.  
           [0003]    2. Description of Related Art  
           [0004]    Computer based patient records (CPRs) are medical histories containing clinical data that can be stored and accessed electronically. Even though CPRs are accessible over computer systems and networks, the medical community is still faced with the problem of processing and evaluating CPRs because the clinical data is often not normalized and the CPRs may have different data formats. While electronically storing data is advantageous, storing data that is not normalized or properly arranged can introduce inconsistencies and incompatibilities that significantly limit the usability of databases storing CPRs.  
           [0005]    The difficulties associated with processing and evaluating CPRs begin with the organization and accessibility of the clinical data stored in the CPRs, which is often provided by a variety of different legacy systems, such as laboratory systems, pharmaceutical systems, and hospital information systems. Because the clinical data comes from diverse sources, it is not surprising that the clinical data exists in different formats. International Classification of Diseases (ICD), Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED), Systemized Nomenclature of Pathology (SNOP), commercial systems, and other proprietary formats are examples of systems or formats used when creating and storing medical records such as CPRs. Clinical data or CPRs is often accessed by clinicians, administrators, and researchers, as well as for other reasons including regulatory requirements and statistical studies. Accessing clinical data that is not normalized and is stored in different formats or vocabularies makes the clinical data less usable. For these reasons, accessing clinical data can be a lengthy and unfruitful process.  
           [0006]    In order to integrate and normalize the clinical data that is received from various legacy systems and in various vocabularies or formats, a data dictionary is needed to help translate and normalize the clinical data. The data dictionary is effectively a medical database that should have a defined, controlled vocabulary that is able to identify and represent unique items or concepts. The data dictionary should also have a data structure that describes the relationships between concepts such that significant medical descriptions and relationships can be produced. A data dictionary meeting these requirements would be able to translate and normalize medical data regardless of the source of the data and the format of the data.  
           [0007]    While the attributes of an ideal data dictionary are identifiable, creating such a dictionary is much more problematic. A significant challenge is developing a vocabulary that is capable of handling both syntactic and semantic constructions. This is particularly important with regard to medical data, which is often expressed in natural language rather than numbers.  
           [0008]    An early attempt to develop a data dictionary was through the use of structured text, which is still in use in many systems. Structured text relies on a model that defines the order in which data will appear. For example, a model laboratory result can be expressed as: [patient], [test], [result name], [result value], and [units]. Structured text works relatively well for predictable data, but has significant disadvantages. A system using structured text to store clinical data does not perform any evaluation on the clinical data that is stored. As a result, misspellings and incorrect entries can easily occur. In addition, any application that is designed to effectively access the structured text must be aware of all possible data variations. This limitation is extremely difficult to overcome because the dictionary storing the structured text as well as the applications accessing the structured text must be modified every time new information, such as lab tests or new drugs, are added to the structured text. Structured text systems also have difficulty dealing with complex data, such as microbiology reports, and are not able to handle a controlled and standardized vocabulary that can be shared with other providers.  
           [0009]    Another vocabulary used in data dictionaries is ICD, which emphasizes semantics. ICD uses a three digit number for representing the general concept, followed by a two digit number that represents a specific concept. While the ICD vocabulary facilitates data storage and retrieval, ICD is not adequate for representing the clinical information that is stored in data dictionaries and ultimately, in CPRS. For example, ICD cannot effectively represent time, which is a key element in many medical events. ICD also has the disadvantage of using a single code or concept to represent multiple events. For example, the ICD code of 100.89, “Other Leptospiral Infection,” is used for at least three fevers and three infections. For this reason, ICD introduces ambiguity that should be avoided in the context of a data dictionary.  
           [0010]    SNOMED is a coding system or nomenclature that attends to both semantics and syntax. In fact, SNOMED III is a complete vocabulary that enables practitioners to describe a great number of concepts found in CPRs. SNOMED can describe anatomical and temporal concepts as well as probabilities. In spite of these strengths, however, SNOMED does not provide a syntax that is capable of reflecting complex relationships. SNOMED is a substantially complete list of terms that does not clarify the relationships that exist among those terms.  
           [0011]    The information that is ultimately stored in a CPR extends beyond the medical realm to include information related to areas such as demographics and insurance. This type of information presents problems similar to the problems presented by medical vocabularies because different systems use different representations for a single concept. For example, the name of an insurance carrier can be represented in several different ways by different legacy systems. A properly designed data dictionary, therefore can assist the storage of patient related data by providing a vocabulary for other data in addition to medical data.  
           [0012]    As the content of a properly designed data dictionary grows, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that relationships between different concepts are preserved. The complex relationships are extremely important to a data dictionary because the relationships enable the data dictionary to produce and generate meaningful information. The relationships also ensure that data is normalized properly. For example, if the relationship between the concepts of antibiotics and allergies is broken or not included in the data dictionary, then it is possible that an allergic reaction to penicillin will not be properly mapped by the data dictionary. In a data dictionary, there are many complex relationships among the content of the data dictionary. Manually maintaining these relationships is extremely difficult, but necessary act in order to preserve the integrity and accuracy of the data dictionary.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0013]    These and other problems associated with related art are overcome by the present invention, which is directed towards automating the process of managing relationships existing in a health data dictionary. More specifically, the present invention relates to systems and methods for managing complex relationships between unique concepts in a health data dictionary.  
           [0014]    The inadequacies and shortcomings of previous vocabularies are substantially overcome by the 3M® Healthcare Data Dictionary (HDD). In the HDD, each concept or item is uniquely defined and the HDD is able to incorporate other vocabularies such as ICD and SNOMED into the definitions and descriptions of the unique concepts. In addition, the HDD is able to establish complex relationships between different concepts, which permits meaningful medical expressions to be conveyed. The HDD, in addition to providing a vocabulary for medical data, also provides a vocabulary for other types of data such as demographics, insurance data, pharmaceutical data, physical location data, and the like.  
           [0015]    The content of the HDD is defined and related by an extremely complex semantic network. The relationships are often defined in relationship tables. It is important to ensure that the relationships are current and accurate. One aspect of the present invention is capable of adding, searching for, and updating existing relationships. Another aspect of the present invention is the ability to provide quality assurance for the relationships. The quality assurance often takes the form of searching for missing, duplicate, or inappropriate relationships. The relationship manager automates the review and edit process of the relationships of the health data dictionary to ensure accuracy and completeness.  
           [0016]    Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by the practice of the invention. The features and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. These and other features of the present invention will become more fully apparent from the following description and appended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the invention as set forth hereinafter.  
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0017]    In order to describe the manner in which the above-recited and other advantages and features of the invention can be obtained, a more particular description of the invention briefly described above will be rendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof which are illustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that these drawings depict only typical embodiments of the invention and are not therefore to be considered to be limiting of its scope, the invention will be described and explained with additional specificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawings in which:  
         [0018]    [0018]FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary system that provides a suitable operating environment for the present invention;  
         [0019]    [0019]FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating the concepts, rules, and knowledge base within a health data dictionary;  
         [0020]    [0020]FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating how data from legacy systems is translated by a health data dictionary and stored in a data repository; and  
         [0021]    [0021]FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a relationship manager that interacts with relationships existing between the concepts stored in the health data dictionary.  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
       [0022]    The present invention relates to systems and methods for translating clinical data and more specifically to managing relationships in a health data dictionary (HDD). The HDD contains concepts, each of which is a unique item or idea. The concepts are grouped according to contexts or domains and are used to translate clinical data. The relationships between the concepts are quite complex and are described in a knowledge base of the HDD. Often, relationship tables are used to describe the relationships. The present invention extends to systems and methods for reviewing, editing, updating, and maintaining the relationships of the HDD.  
         [0023]    As used herein, clinical, medical or patient data refers to data that is associated with a patient and can include, but is not limited to, pharmaceutical data, laboratory results, diagnoses, symptoms, insurance data, personal information, demographic data, physical locations, beds, rooms, nursing divisions, facilities, buildings and the like. Generally, clinical data generated by a legacy system is stored in a general repository, which may be on-site or off-site. The general repository can also be specific to a particular facility or source or used by multiple sources. Before the clinical data is stored in the general repository, it is transmitted through an interface engine to the HDD, where it is mapped, matched, and/or translated. Finally, the processed data is committed to the general repository. The HDD allows codes to be stored with the clinical data such that the clinical data can be consistently retrieved. The relationships of the HDD allow meaningful statements to be created that related that equate to the submitted clinical data. More specifically, the relationships allow the concepts of the HDD to be combined to accurately reflect the clinical data submitted by the legacy system. The relationships also permit the clinical data to be normalized and stored in a standard form. The present invention therefore extends to both systems and methods for managing relationships in a health data dictionary. The embodiments of the present invention may comprise a special purpose or general purpose computer including various computer hardware, as discussed in greater detail below.  
         [0024]    Embodiments within the scope of the present invention also include computer-readable media for carrying or having computer-executable instructions or data structures stored thereon. Such computer-readable media can be any available media which can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, and not limitation, such computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to carry or store desired program code means in the form of computer-executable instructions or data structures and which can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer. When information is transferred or provided over a network or another communications connection (either hardwired, wireless, or a combination of hardwired or wireless) to a computer, the computer properly views the connection as a computer-readable medium. Thus, any such connection is properly termed a computer-readable medium. Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope of computer-readable media. Computer-executable instructions comprise, for example, instructions and data which cause a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or special purpose processing device to perform a certain function or group of functions.  
         [0025]    [0025]FIG. 1 and the following discussion are intended to provide a brief, general description of a suitable computing environment in which the invention may be implemented. Although not required, the invention will be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by computers in network environments. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Computer-executable instructions, associated data structures, and program modules represent examples of the program code means for executing steps of the methods disclosed herein. The particular sequence of such executable instructions or associated data structures represent examples of corresponding acts for implementing the functions described in such steps.  
         [0026]    Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practiced in network computing environments with many types of computer system configurations, including personal computers, hand-held devices, multi-processor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by local and remote processing devices that are linked (either by hardwired links, wireless links, or by a combination of hardwired or wireless links) through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.  
         [0027]    With reference to FIG. 1, an exemplary system for implementing the invention includes a general purpose computing device in the form of a conventional computer  20 , including a processing unit  21 , a system memory  22 , and a system bus  23  that couples various system components including the system memory  22  to the processing unit  21 . The system bus  23  may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. The system memory includes read only memory (ROM)  24  and random access memory (RAM)  25 . A basic input/output system (BIOS)  26 , containing the basic routines that help transfer information between elements within the computer  20 , such as during start-up, may be stored in ROM  24 .  
         [0028]    The computer  20  may also include a magnetic hard disk drive  27  for reading from and writing to a magnetic hard disk  39 , a magnetic disk drive  28  for reading from or writing to a removable magnetic disk  29 , and an optical disk drive  30  for reading from or writing to removable optical disk  31  such as a CD-ROM or other optical media. The magnetic hard disk drive  27 , magnetic disk drive  28 , and optical disk drive  30  are connected to the system bus  23  by a hard disk drive interface  32 , a magnetic disk drive-interface  33 , and an optical drive interface  34 , respectively. The drives and their associated computer-readable media provide nonvolatile storage of computer-executable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the computer  20 . Although the exemplary environment described herein employs a magnetic hard disk  39 , a removable magnetic disk  29  and a removable optical disk  31 , other types of computer readable media for storing data can be used, including magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks, Bernoulli cartridges, RAMs, ROMs, and the like.  
         [0029]    Program code means comprising one or more program modules may be stored on the hard disk  39 , magnetic disk  29 , optical disk  31 , ROM  24  or RAM  25 , including an operating system  35 , one or more application programs  36 , other program modules  37 , and program data  38 . A user may enter commands and information into the computer  20  through keyboard  40 , pointing device  42 , or other input devices (not shown), such as a microphone, joy stick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit  21  through a serial port interface  46  coupled to system bus  23 . Alternatively, the input devices may be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, a game port or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor  47  or another display device is also connected to system bus  23  via an interface, such as video adapter  48 . In addition to the monitor, personal computers typically include other peripheral output devices (not shown), such as speakers and printers.  
         [0030]    The computer  20  may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as remote computers  49   a  and  49   b . Remote computers  49   a  and  49   b  may each be another personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically include many or all of the elements described above relative to the computer  20 , although only memory storage devices  50   a  and  50   b  and their associated application programs  36   a  and  36   b  have been illustrated in FIG. 1. The logical connections depicted in FIG. 1 include a local area network (LAN)  51  and a wide area network (WAN)  52  that are presented here by way of example and not limitation. Such networking environments are commonplace in office-wide or enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.  
         [0031]    When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer  20  is connected to the local network  51  through a network interface or adapter  53 . When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer  20  may include a modem  54 , a wireless link, or other means for establishing communications over the wide area network  52 , such as the Internet. The modem  54 , which may be internal or external, is connected to the system bus  23  via the serial port interface  46 . In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the computer  20 , or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing communications over wide area network  52  may be used.  
         [0032]    [0032]FIG. 2 is a block diagram that illustrates an exemplary health data dictionary (HDD). The HDD  220  describes clinical or medical data in all its possible forms, eliminates data ambiguity, and ensures that data is stored in an appropriate format or vocabulary. The HDD  220  is a database that is used to define or translate the clinical data stored in a computer based patient record (CPR). The HDD  220  ensures that patient data from multiple sources can be integrated and normalized into a form that is accessible by those sources. The HDD  220  integrates a controlled vocabulary, an information model that defines how medical concepts can be combined to produce medical descriptions, and a knowledge base that describes the complex relationships that may exist between the medical concepts.  
         [0033]    The vocabulary  222  is designed to identify and uniquely represent concepts. Each concept  224  described within a particular context  226  is assigned a unique identifier  228 . For example, the term or concept of “discharge” can occur in several different contexts: A patient can be discharged from a hospital; a surgeon can send a discharge from a wound to a laboratory; a chart can reflect that a discharge from a patient&#39;s ears has been occurring for a certain length of time; or a discharge code can be assigned to a particular case. Another example is the concept represented by the term “cold.” Cold can refer to body temperature, a feeling, or an upper respiratory infection.  
         [0034]    The ambiguity created by these types of terms can be quickly and easily resolved by a care provider or other person because the context is readily apparent to the care provider. It is much more difficult, however, for computers to resolve these types of problems. The HDD  220  overcomes this problem with the vocabulary  222 . The vocabulary  222  includes a concept  224 , which is a unique, identifiable item or idea. Using the previous example, “cold” can be a concept. In order to make the cold concept unique, it is often provided in a context  226 . As used herein, the combination of context and concept is referred to generally as a concept. If cold refers to an upper respiratory infection, then the context may be, for example, a diagnosis. This type of combination of a concept  224  and a context  226  results in unique identifiable items or ideas and each is assigned an identifier  228 . In the HDD  220 , duplicate concepts or identifiers  228  are not allowed in order to maintain an accurate, controlled vocabulary  222 . The HDD  220  is therefore capable of linking vague, ambiguous representations to precise definitions. The context  226  is often referred to as a domain. Examples of domains include, but are not limited to, insurances, diagnoses, symptoms, lab tests, lab results, and the like.  
         [0035]    In essence, the vocabulary  222  links surface forms or representations of concepts as they occur in medical language to unique, unambiguous concepts. For example, the representation of “common cold” and the representation of “URI” can both be related to the cold concept that is defined to be an upper respiratory infections. The vocabulary  222  incorporates many different types of surface forms. For example, synonyms, homonyms, and eponyms are related to concepts in the HDD  220 . Different representations of the same concept are related in the HDD  220 . Thus, expressing a concept using either natural language or SNOMED will be connected to the same unique concept in the HDD  220 . Common variants of a term including acronyms and misspellings are integrated into the vocabulary  222 . Foreign language equivalents are included in the vocabulary  222  and specific contexts for certain terms are also reflected in the vocabulary. For instance, “dyspnea” may be a surface form for cardiologists while “shortness of breath” may be the preferred surface form for nursing station personnel.  
         [0036]    The HDD  220  uses relationship tables to create these complex relationships. In one embodiment, the HDD  220  simply stores identifiers in the relationship tables, which are used to map or translate data as will be described in more detail below. The surface forms or representations are expressed in tables that effectively map surface forms to specific unique concepts. It is therefore possible for a surface form to be related to more than one concept. In this case, the context is useful in determining which concept is used as previously described.  
         [0037]    The data structure  230  is a component of the HDD  220  that provides rules  232  to define how medical concepts are utilized. For example, the isolated concept of cold may be of little value. However, combining the cold concept with other concepts such as other symptoms, can result is a medical description. The concepts which represent symptoms can be combined to describe that a patient feels cold, nauseous, and feverish. In another example, the concepts of chest, x-ray and lung mass can be combined to describe that a chest x-ray shows a lung mass. The rules  232  ensure than meaningful medical descriptions are formed. In other words, concepts such as feverish cannot be combined with an x-ray because an x-ray cannot depict the feverish concept. The rules  232  can be altered as needed to ensure that accurate medical descriptions are obtained from the HDD  220 .  
         [0038]    The knowledge base  234  of the HDD  220  is used to describe the relationships that exist between the concepts in the HDD  220 . For example, a lung mass bay be caused by lung cancer. In one embodiment of the HDD  220 , the knowledge base  234  exists as related concept tables that link concepts together in defined relationships. The knowledge base  234  may use “is” and “has the components of” relationships to define the related concept tables. For example, the following table represents an exemplary portion of the knowledge base  234 .  
                                       Concept (Context)   Relationship   Concept                   Temperature   Is   Cold               Hot               Tepid       Illness   Has the components of   Symptoms               Vital signs               Diagnosis                  
 
         [0039]    Other types of relationships, such as “is a,” “caused by,” “related to,” “relieved by,” and the like can all be expressed and represented in the knowledge base  234 . More generally, the HDD  220  is a collection of relationship tables that define concepts, establish relationships, and provide essential information necessary to translate, map and match clinical data contained in CPRs stored in a data repository. When clinical data has been translated and he unique identifiers describing that data are identified, the unique identifiers are often stored in the data repository such that the process can be reversed.  
         [0040]    In order to maintain the integrity of the HDD, each different legacy system, organization, facility, or entity maintains a local copy of the HDD. A master version of the HDD is maintained at a different location and the copy of the HDD can be updated as needed. If necessary, changes made to the copy of the HDD can be uploaded to the master version of the HDD if necessary. In certain circumstances, the local copy of the HDD can the alteration is not made to the master version in order to preserve the integrity of the master version. In addition, many local changes are entity-specific and would have no meaning to other entities. For that reason, these types of changes to the HDD are not propagated. In other words, entities maintain copies of the HDD in part because much of the information maintained by the HDD, such as physical location data, is specific to a user and does not need to be stored in the master version of the HDD. If a particular concept is not found in the HDD, an error message is sent to the master HDD. The error message is reviewed and a new entry may be created in the HDD, depending on the analysis of the error message. If a new entry is created, the local copy of the HDD is updated such that the event that generated the error message no longer occurs.  
         [0041]    The formation of an extensive computer based patient record (CPR) can potentially involve many different health care providers. Each of these providers obtains different types of information from the patient whose clinical data is stored in the CPR. As previously described, the number of different care providers often causes problems with the CPR because the information gathered by those care providers is in different formats or vocabularies and is not normalized. FIG. 3 is a block diagram that illustrates an exemplary system that uses a health data dictionary to effectively create and store CPRs. The health data dictionary has the significant advantages of providing a data scheme that normalizes patient data and removes ambiguity, returns the patient data to care providers in the appropriate format, and describes medical data in all of its possible forms.  
         [0042]    [0042]FIG. 3 illustrates a legacy system  200 , which is representative of the sources of clinical data including facilities, enterprises, divisions within enterprises, and the like. Exemplary legacy systems include, but are not limited to, pharmacy system  202 , laboratory system  204 , emergency system  206 , and admissions system  208 . Each legacy system  200  is used to reflect patient data. The pharmacy system  202 , for example, may reflect which drugs have been prescribed for a particular patient as well as the dosage. The laboratory system  204  may describe the results of tests that have been ordered for the patient. The emergency system  206  may reflect the symptoms of a patient as well as a possible diagnosis. The admissions system probably reflects patient data such as name, address, insurance carrier, and the like. In addition, the patient gathered by these legacy systems  200  may overlap in some instances. Other systems may also be used to gather patient information.  
         [0043]    Each legacy system transmits data through an interface engine  210 . In some instances, the interface engine  210  is not required because the legacy system is a direct client of the HDD. The interface engine  210  generates an interface code that is used when the HDD  220  processes the clinical data provided by the legacy system  200 . For example, if the laboratory system  204  is sending data that identifies a patient&#39;s blood type from a blood test, then the interface code may be “blood type.” Note that while text is used in this discussion, the actual interface code is most likely a computer recognizable alphanumeric string. The HDD  220  receives the interface code and is aware that the interface engine  210  associated with the laboratory system  204  sent the clinical data. Based on this context, the HDD  220  is able to use the interface code to find the concept identifiers that represent blood type. In this situation, more than one concept may be needed to accurately reflect the clinical data. A separate concept identifier may be needed to identify the test performed by the laboratory, the actual blood type, and the like. These concept identifiers are then stored in the data repository  250  along with information that identifies the patient. In this manner, the data repository  250  contains a patient&#39;s CPR in a standard and normalized form that is consistent with other information stored in the data repository  250  for that patient from other clinical data sources. The data repository  250  therefore contains a complete history of medical events associated with a particular person in a form that allows for efficient use by multiple parties. If the test is retrieved from the data repository  250 , the HDD  220  can reverse the process to determine that a blood test was performed as well as provide the results of the blood test in the appropriate format or vocabulary. The HDD  220  therefore serves to translate clinical data into a standard and normalized format. Note that the combination of the unique concepts provides a meaningful medical description.  
         [0044]    The relationships of the HDD can be quite complex. The following tables are examples of relationship tables that describe or define certain relationships between concepts. The first table is a relationship table for a Logical Observation Identifier Names and Codes (LOINC) that relates the concepts of LOINC identifiers with another concept about a particular laboratory result or test. The second table is a synonym table that describes the relationship between a single concept and different representations of that concept. In these example, text is used in some portions for clarity. Normally alphanumeric identifiers are actually used in the HDD.  
                                 TABLE I                           Relationship Table for LOINC Code 2159-2                Concept A   Relationship   Concept B                       LOINC 2159-2   Has Component   Creatinine           LOINC 2159-2   Has Property   Mass Concentration           LOINC 2159-2   Has Time   Point in Time           LOINC 2159-2   Has System   Amniotic Fluid           LOINC 2159-2   Has Scale   Quantitative           LOINC 2159-2   Has Method   Null Method                      
 
         [0045]    [0045]                                 TABLE II                           Synonyms for the Component Attribute                Concept ID   Concept Name   Synonym                       11   Metanephrine   METANEPH           11   Metanephrine   24H METANEPH           12   Creatinine Kinase   CK           12   Creatinine Kinase   CPK           12   Creatinine Kinase   CK TOTAL                        
         [0046]    Table I is an example of the types of relationships that can be used to identify and associate concepts. The examples shown in the “Relationship” column of Table I are only examples of relationships and are not intended as an exclusive listing of possible relationships. In Table II, a single concept is associated with multiple representations. More specifically, concept  11  has a relationship with two synonyms and concept  12  has a relationship with three synonyms. The relationships shown in Table II are often used to map clinical data to the HDD. Tables I and II are intended as illustrations of the relationships that can be included in the HDD and are not an exclusive listing of relationships. In addition, relationships are often identified using these types of relationship tables.  
         [0047]    [0047]FIG. 4 is a block diagram that illustrates a relationship manager that acts on the relationships stored in the HDD. Before discussing the operation of the relationship manager  430 , it is useful to have another view of the content contained in the HDD  220 . FIG. 4 illustrates that the concepts of the HDD  220  are arranged in domains and sub-domains. Domain  402 , for example is hierarchically related to sub-domain  404  and sub-domain  406 . FIG. 4 also illustrates a domain  416 . Each domain and sub-domain has concepts that are unique items as previously described. Thus concept  408  is a different idea than concept  410  even though they are in the same domain  402  and sub-domain  404 . Each concept is assigned a unique identifier as previously described.  
         [0048]    The relationships of the HDD, shown in FIG. 2 as the knowledge base  234 , essentially relate concepts. The relationships between concepts can be within the same domain or with concepts in other domains. For example, the concept  410  can be related to the concept  412  and the concept  418  and not related to the concept  414 ,  408 , and  420 . The complexity of the relationships is clearly complex and involved.  
         [0049]    The relationship manager  430  provides modules that allow the relationships to be maintained, managed, updated, moved, deleted, etc., in order to ensure that the relationships are accurate and complete. The search module  432  provides the ability to search both single and multi-level relationships as well as the ability to search in single or multiple domains.  
         [0050]    The assurance module  434  provides the ability to search for relationship errors including, but not limited to, missing relationships, duplicated relationships, and inappropriate relationships. The assurance module  434  also provides for remedying relationship errors. The assurance module  434  allows relationships within a particular sub-domain to be updated, added, or deleted, while checking for redundancies and completeness. The assurance module  434  allows a relationship statement to be inserted to one or more domains and allows for relationship statements to be deleted across one or more domains. The assurance module  434  allows relationship statements to be added, inserted, or updated for a single concept across a single domain or across multiple domains.  
         [0051]    For example, one of the entries in the “Concept B” column of Table I could be incorrect. More specifically, assume that water was listed as the system instead of amniotic fluid. Next, the search module  432  could be set to search for relationships related to water. In this case, the search module  432  would identify the relationship shown in Table I. After determining that amniotic fluid should be the system instead of water, the assurance module  434  is used to change the relationship such that the correct system of amniotic fluid is present. The relationship manager  430  may detect circular relationships that are incorrect. In effect, the relationship manager  430  ensures that relationships are current and accurate.  
         [0052]    The search module  432  can use input specified by a user as search criteria to find relationships in the relationship tables of the HDD. For example, there may be confusion as to whether a particular substance is a drug or a food. Both the drug and the food can be received orally by a patient. The relationship manager can add relationships that specify whether the substance is a drug or a food in the relationship tables. In this manner, the relationship tables can prevent food from being recognized as drugs and vice versa. Continuing with this example, a relationship may be created in the HDD that indicates that anything ingested orally is a food. This is an example of an inappropriate relationship because not everything that is orally ingested is a food. The relationship manager will search for and identify these types of relationships such that they can be corrected. Examples of correcting the relationships include, but are not limited to adding new relationships, deleting the relationships, and updating the relationships.  
         [0053]    The present invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from its spirit or essential characteristics. The described embodiments are to be considered in all respects only as illustrative and not restrictive. The scope of the invention is, therefore, indicated by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description. All changes which come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are to be embraced within their scope.