ECRI Institute adds 4,000 new terms to medical device nomenclature
system
12 July 2010
The ECRI Institute has added 4,000 new terms to its Universal
Medical Device Nomenclature System, covering medical devices, genetic
tests and medical device software.
The 2010 Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System (UMDNS) now
contains 24,544 terms covering the expanse of medical devices and
equipment used for modern healthcare delivery, including information
systems, software, in vitro diagnostics, molecular and
genetic tests, capital equipment, implantable devices, assistive
devices, and consumables.
In the past year more than 4,000 terms for genetic tests alone
have been added. By the end of 2010, ECRI will release many
additional terms for software used with medical devices.
"In this era of health information exchange, standardizing data
is critical," says Vivian H. Coates, vice president, information
services and health technology assessment, ECRI Institute. "Our
proprietary nomenclature system fills this need for medical devices
and related equipment and consumables."
ECRI Institute's Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System is
licensed free of charge to regulatory agencies, hospitals and health
systems, manufacturers, and distributors who use the nomenclature to
support procurement, asset management and maintenance, hazard and
recall tracking, patient safety activities, indexing of literature,
spend analysis, quality improvement, and systems-level benchmarking.
Numerous US organizations and agencies have endorsed UMDNS for
use in their software applications. The Healthcare Information and
Management Systems Society (HIMMS) recommends using ECRI Institute's
nomenclature in its Manufacturer Disclosure Statement for Medical
Device Security (MDS2) form. The Committee on Data Standards for
Patient Safety of the Institute of Medicine recommended UMDNS as one
of the core terminologies for the electronic health record.
The US Department of Veterans Affairs, the US Department for
Defense, Premier, Inc., and vendors of computerized maintenance
management systems and enterprise asset management systems developed
and implement applications using the Universal Medical Device
Nomenclature System.
"ECRI Institute uses UMDNS to encode device-related concepts in
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's National Guideline
Clearinghouse and the National Quality Measures Clearinghouse, which
are developed and maintained by ECRI Institute under contract," says
Coates. "We also incorporate the five-digit Universal Medical Device
Code into our own device-related information products and patient
safety applications for mapping and standardizing of terminology."
The Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System is used
internationally by ministries of health to provide common
terminology for managing clinical systems across healthcare systems,
by the World Health Organization in its tool for resource allocation
in developing countries, and in Asia as the foundation for the Asian
Medical Device Nomenclature System. The 2010 Spanish translation has
recently been added to the ECRI Web site.