Kaiser Permanente is donating its Convergent Medical Terminology (CMT) for open access to help boost the country's transition from paper-based medical records to electronic health records.

CMT underpins the Kaiser Permanente electronic health record called KP HealthConnect.

Terms are captured within the EHR and turned into terms that patients can understand, Kaiser officials explained at the Sept. 29 announcement of its gift.  For example, MI (for myocardial infarction) turns in heart attack, or HT translates to hypertension. David Blumenthal, MD, the national coordinator of health IT, said,  "It's like a continuous translation of different languages."

The donation of the Kaiser-developed technology would enable any vendor to incorporate the capability into their products and make them available to their clients.

Kaiser Permanente is donating CMT, the results of years of work at Kaiser, to the International Healthcare Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO) for U.S. distribution through the Department of Health and Human Services so that all healthcare providers - large and small - can benefit from the translation-enabling technology. 

Kaiser Permanente CIO Phil Fasano declined to put a price tag on the donation, but said the development of the technology involved not only years of work, but thousands of people.

"CMT is designed to be seamless so clinicians see the familiar clinical language on their monitors while other users can see a simpler, translated version," said Fasano. "The development and implementation of this terminology system was a strategic investment as part of our commitment to improve healthcare, and we are pleased to share it with providers across the country so that they and their patients can benefit from it as well."

Kaiser Permanente's donation consists of terminology content it has already developed, a set of tools to help create and manage terminology, and processes to control the quality of terminology that is developed. CMT also includes mappings to classifications and standard vocabularies, such as the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine - Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) already accepted by U.S. and international health policy makers.

Better data for better health

"Better data is critical for better health. That is why physicians, nurses, and pharmacists worked together with technology specialists to develop CMT," said Jack Cochran, MD, executive director of The Permanente Federation. "Modern medicine is very complex and information about a single patient can be reported in different ways by different doctors who are treating different conditions for the same patient. Utilizing a common terminology that translates complex medical concepts into language that is both clinician- and patient-friendly has helped us coordinate teams, improve the quality of care for our patients and enhance efficiency in our organization. We would like to share the tool we developed with the country."

CMT is used in the underlying architecture of Kaiser Permanente's health IT systems to support data flow between healthcare providers. It provides mapping to standardize the use of terminology and ensure systems, some already in use in most U.S. medical offices, can talk to each other effectively.

The utilization of CMT will support a common set of medical concept descriptions so that one doctor's diagnosis can be reconciled with another's. CMT includes the key taxonomies required for Stage 1 of the meaningful use program, such as problem list sets in SNOMED CT.

It can help clinicians map to the standards set forth by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

CMT is also used by Kaiser Permanente's personal health record, My Health Manager, on kp.org so that patients can get a better understanding of their medical care. My Health Manager provides patients with secure, timely access to their lab test results, medication information and refill capabilities, summaries of their health conditions, and other important health information at just the click of a mouse. The technology empowers patients to manage their health by allowing them to access health information and tools and securely e-mail their doctor.

"A primary focus of this administration is the transformation of the quality of healthcare while reducing costs," said U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra. "A core enabler for that transformation is the ability to study health outcomes across many institutions on a large scale with electronic health records and the best technology available. This contribution from Kaiser Permanente takes us several steps closer to realizing that goal and improving the quality of care for all our citizens."