Eenheid van Taal in de Nederlandse zorg: Van eenduidige informatie-uitwisseling tot hulpmiddel voor betere zorg

Healthcare providers and patients are making increasing use of information systems to exchange health information. To enable the efficient and safe provision of care services, it's important to ensure that this information has the same meaning and significance for all the caregivers involved. This is particularly relevant for the transfer of information between healthcare providers, for example between the GP and the hospital. This is referred to as Semantic Unification in the healthcare sector. The focus here is less on a uniform use of language and more on consistent agreements as to when, how, and which technical terms will be used in computer systems when sharing and reusing information, without any accompanying loss of meaning.

At present, healthcare providers often describe an illness or disorder with a wide variety of digital terms and codes in their systems. As a result, it takes time to interpret medical information and to process it in the 'next' digital care system when a transfer takes place. RIVM and the e-health expertise centre Nictiz recommend the preparation of a shared dictionary with three basic languages that supplement each other, which would cover most of the healthcare sector. This dictionary would be linked to the systems of the healthcare provider or the patient. The system will then use the dictionary to convert illnesses and disorders into unambiguous terms (and codes when relevant). This will reduce the administrative burden placed on the healthcare provider, reduce the number of errors made, and improve the safety and efficiency of the healthcare services.

RIVM and Nictiz also recommend using this shared dictionary for administrative and quality data. For statistical purposes, for example, it's important to ensure that national and international data with regard to illnesses and disorders is recognised and made available.

In this study, RIVM and Nictiz collaborated with relevant individuals from the field to identify opportunities for encouraging Semantic Unification. The recommendations have been discussed in September 2018 in the healthcare platform 'National Health Information Council', in which the government and healthcare sector collaborate in order to realise improved consistency and uniformity of information supply throughout the care chain. Participants in the National Health Information Council endorse the importance of Semantic Unification and recommend prudent application.