The American Academy of Dermatology is launching an online dictionary of common terms that it hopes will aid dermatologists, primary care physicians, and other practitioners in communicating, securing reimbursement, and reporting adverse events.
DermLex grew out of a 5-year grant issued by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases in 2001 to Dr. Art Papier and Dr. Lowell Goldsmith at the University of Rochester (N.Y.) dermatology department to develop a universal dermatology lexicon. Five years later, the AAD took over the project, and the initial version 1.0 was expected to be live on its Web site (www.aad.org/research/lexicon
Dr. Mark Pittelkow, chairman of the AAD's Medical Informatics Committee, said that the most important goal of DermLex is to create a common language among dermatologists but also between specialties. It should help make coding more accurate, he said in an interview. DermLex will also contribute to better patient care and improve provider education, said Dr. Pittelkow.
Eventually, DermLex should have online tools so it seamlessly integrates into an electronic medical record, said Dr. Pittelkow. The compendium is similar to SNOMED-CT (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine-Clinical Terms), which was developed by the College of American Pathologists and is owned, maintained, and distributed by the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO), a not-for-profit association in Denmark.
Dr. Pittelkow said that hopefully, DermLex will be used as a companion to SNOMED-CT.
Currently, DermLex is primarily a compendium of terms organized in a hierarchical fashion, he said. The Medical Informatics Committee still is working on formal definitions for all the terms.
The database will be open to the public, but AAD members will likely get additional tools that will not be available to nonmembers, Dr. Pittelkow said.
The AAD is providing the technical and financial support for the project, although it has been a largely volunteer effort up until this point. The need for ongoing support will be great, he said.
“Some may view (DermLex) as a sort of stamp collecting, but it's supposed to be very alive and dynamic,” said Dr. Pittelkow. He made no disclosures.