Patient safety classifications, taxonomies and ontologies: A systematic review on development and evaluation methodologies

• Published in: Journal of biomedical informatics 2022-09, Vol.133, p.104150-104150, Article 104150
• Main Authors: Taheri Moghadam, Sharare, Hooman, Nakysa, Sheikhtaheri, Abbas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biological ontologies; Classification; Controlled vocabulary; Development; Evaluation; Medical errors; Ontology; Patient safety; Taxonomy; Terminology
• ISSN: 1532-0464; 1532-0480
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jbi.2022.104150

[Display omitted] •Methods and criteria applied for the development and evaluation of patient safety classifications/ontologies are introduced.•Expanding or mapping existing classifications/ontologies, qualitative analysis of safety event reports are the most common development methods.•Coding or classifying some samples, quantitative analysis of incidents and consensus among users are the most common evaluation methods.•Reliability, content and face validity, comprehensiveness and logic of the system are common evaluation criteria applied in the field of patient safety.•These methods were mapped to standard approaches for the development and evaluation of biomedical ontologies to show the gaps in the field of patient safety. Patient safety classifications/ontologies enable patient safety information systems to receive and analyze patient safety data to improve patient safety. Patient safety classifications/ontologies have been developed and evaluated using a variety of methods. The purpose of this review was to discuss and analyze the methodologies for developing and evaluating patient safety classifications/ontologies. Studies that developed or evaluated patient safety classifications, terminologies, taxonomies, or ontologies were searched through Google Scholar, Google search engines, National Center for Biomedical Ontology (NCBO) BioPortal, Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry and World Health Organization (WHO) websites and Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, and Science Direct. We updated our search on 30 February 2021 and included all studies published until the end of 2020. Studies that developed or evaluated classifications only for patient safety and provided information on how they were developed or evaluated were included. Systems with covered patient safety terms (such as ICD-10) but are not specifically developed for patient safety were excluded. The quality and the risk of bias of studies were not assessed because all methodologies and criteria were intended to be covered. In addition, we analyzed the data through descriptive narrative synthesis and compared and classified the development and evaluation methods and evaluation criteria according to available development and evaluation approaches for biomedical ontologies. We identified 84 articles that met all of the inclusion criteria, resulting in 70 classifications/ontologies, nine of which were for the general medical domain. The most papers were published in 2010 and 2011, w