The NICE taxonomy: a case study of developing a corporate taxonomy

Sadia MughalHealth Libraries Conference

19th July 2010

What will be covered…

• Need for a taxonomy• Why develop a taxonomy• Requirements of the taxonomy• NICE taxonomy: key features• Developing the NICE taxonomy• Issues encountered• Future of the NICE taxonomy• Summary

Need for a taxonomy

• Merger of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the Health Development Agency (HDA) in April 2005

• Taxonomy developed in-house by the Information Services Team, with consultant advice

Why develop a taxonomy?

A classification scheme providing a consistent language across NICE to support website navigation and the

efficient search and retrieval of information

OR…

…a way to organise and make sense of

the “NICE universe”

Requirements of the taxonomy

• Cover all subjects within NICE's remit• Simple in structure • Include both professional and lay terminology• Have a single set of:

- preferred terms (professional terminology)- non-preferred terms (lay terminology, synonyms

and acronyms)

NICE taxonomy: key features

7 top level terms, known as Facets:

• Illness or Condition• Medical Specialities• NICE• People and Populations• Public Health• Settings• Treatments, Procedures and Devices

Facet structure

ILLNESS OR CONDITION

TREATMENTS, PROCEDURES AND DEVICES

PUBLIC HEALTH

Cancer

Digestive System

Gastrointestinal Diseases

Liver Diseases

Drug Treatments

ProceduresSurgical

Diagnostic

Therapeutic

CardiovascularPancreatic Diseases

Cancer by Site

Cancer by Type

Public Health Practice

Health Behaviour

Accidents

Alcohol Misuse

Broader Term (BT)

Individual Facets

Narrower Term 2 (NT2)Narrower Term 1 (NT1)

NICE Taxonomy: key features

• Facets are arranged in hierarchical order• The taxonomy is multi-hierarchical• Contains synonym relationships• Half the terms are synonyms• Currently contains 1700 terms• Updated once a month• Managed in MultiTes software

Developing the NICE taxonomy

Several health terminologies were used:

• International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10)• Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)• Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine- Clinical

Terms (SNOMED-CT) • British National Formulary (BNF)• International Classification for Surgical Procedures• Public Health Language (PHL)• Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary (IPSV)• Department of Health (DH) taxonomy

Creating the facets

• Top levels of ICD-10, PHL and BNF were used to form respectively, the clinical, public health and drug treatment facets

• MeSH, SNOMED-CT, the DH and IPSV taxonomies were used as sources of terms and synonyms

• International Classification for Surgical Procedures was used for surgical procedures terms

• IPSV was used to provide 'lay terms' as synonyms

Issues encountered (1)

• How simple/complex should the taxonomy be?

• How deep should we index?

• Solution: to keep the taxonomy simple

• Electronic Guidance Access Project (EGAP)

Issues encountered (2)

• The need for a review of the taxonomy:

– Individual facets evaluated and key issues identified

– People and Populations facet

– Audience facet (new)

– Settings facet

Future of the NICE taxonomy

• The new Population, Audience and Settings facets will allow personalisation of guidance.

• Pilot test underway

• Taxonomy is not perfect, but FIT FOR PURPOSE

• Taxonomy is never a finished product

NICE Taxonomy

NICE Taxonomy is available at the following web address:

bit.ly/nicetaxonomy

Summary

• Developed as a browsing, navigation and search tool for the NICE website

• Specific requirements of the taxonomy

• Structure of the NICE taxonomy

• Development of the NICE taxonomy

• Issues encountered

• Future of the NICE taxonomy

Any questions…?Sadia Mughal

Assistant Information SpecialistNational Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence MidCity Place , 71 High Holborn , London WC1V 6NA 

Email: sadia.mughal@nice.org.uk

Tel: 44 (0)20 7045 2104 Web: http://nice.org.uk