Reclassifying and Declassifying Verbatim Terms

The Reclassify Verbatim Terms window enables you to reclassify and declassify verbatim terms. The reclassification process changes the mapping of a verbatim term from one dictionary term to another. By contrast, declassification breaks a verbatim term's mapping without remapping it to a new dictionary term. Declassifying a verbatim term creates an omission.

You may want to reclassify or declassify a verbatim term that has already been classified if:

• You add a term to a dictionary that is a better match for a verbatim term than the one to which it is now mapped.

• You do not like a Candidate Term of type Nonapproved. (You must either accept Candidate Terms of type Nonapproved or reclassify the verbatim term; see Classification Concepts, Candidate Terms and Search Objects.)

• You make a mistake during manual classification.

You may map a verbatim term to a different dictionary term in different TMS domains. In the Reclassify Verbatim Terms window you see classified verbatim terms in one TMS domain at a time, and the changes you make affect only that TMS domain unless the Global? box is selected. See Global and Domain VTAs.

VTAs that you create during reclassification inherit the approval status of the VTA they replace. TMS maintains a full audit trail of reclassifications.

Note:

VTIs are always approved and are never global.

When you reclassify a verbatim term, all version-specific Informative Notes for the old VTA or VTI expire, and TMS assigns them the same end timestamp as the old VTA or VTI. The new VTA or VTI will not have these Informative Notes associated with it.

To access the Reclassify Verbatim Terms window, you must either:

• Have tms_reclassify_priv privileges, in which case you can reclassify VTAs and VTIs created by any user.

• Have classified a verbatim term recently (within the number of hours set in the reference codelist TMS_CONFIGURATION), in which case you can see only VTAs and VTIs you have created, and can modify only those you created within the set time limit.

This section includes:

• About the Reclassify Verbatim Terms Window
  
• Reclassifying a Verbatim Term
  
• Declassifying a Verbatim Term
  

About the Reclassify Verbatim Terms Window

There are two tabs in the upper half of Reclassify Verbatim Terms that display verbatim term information:

• The Distinct VTAs/VTIs tab lists each distinct verbatim term that meets your query criteria. If the same term has been entered for ten patients, the term is displayed once.

• The All VTAs/VTIs tab lists every source term—verbatim term occurrence—that meet your criteria. If the same term has been entered for ten patients, all ten occurrences are displayed. Auxiliary information about each occurrence is also displayed.

For more information, see:

• Common Fields in the Distinct and All VTAs/VTIs Tabs
  
• Distinct Verbatim Term Assignments
  
• All VTAs/VTIs
  
• Repository Terms
  

Common Fields in the Distinct and All VTAs/VTIs Tabs

For each VTA or VTI they describe, both tabs display the following information.

• Glb?: (Global?) If selected, the VTA is available in all domains. (VTIs are never global.)

• Type: VTA means the term is classified with a verbatim term assignment to a unique dictionary term. VTI means the term is classified with a verbatim term individual to a nonunique dictionary term, using auxiliary information.

• Subtype: VTAs and VTIs are either Misspelled or Accepted (correctly spelled).

• Appr?: If selected, the VTA is approved for use in Autoclassification and manual classification. If deselected, TMS proposes the VTA as a Candidate Term but manual approval is required for each occurrence. (VTIs are always approved.)

• Origin: How this term was introduced to this TMS dictionary.

Distinct Verbatim Term Assignments

In addition to the fields described in Common Fields in the Distinct and All VTAs/VTIs Tabs the Distinct VTA/VTI tab includes information about the dictionary term to which the VTA or VTI is linked.

Dictionary Term

By default, this field shows the dictionary term to which the verbatim term is assigned, if any. If you specify a Dictionary Term Display Procedure for this dictionary, this field may display a different term depending on how you wrote the procedure. See Writing a Procedure to Change the Dictionary Display for specifics on the use of this functionality.

DT Appr?

If checked, the dictionary term is approved. If unchecked, the dictionary term is not approved. Depending on the Non Appr DT setting for the current dictionary/domain combination, you may or may not be able to classify a verbatim term to a nonapproved dictionary term. See Assigning a Dictionary to a Domain for more information.

The remaining fields on the Distinct Verbatim Term Assignments block provide read-only information about the term displayed in the Dictionary Term field. For details on these fields, see Current Level Block Fields.

All VTAs/VTIs

In addition to the fields described in Common Fields in the Distinct and All VTAs/VTIs Tabs the All VTAs/VTIs tab includes information about each occurrence of each verbatim term in the selected database:

• Update?: If checked, data relating to this verbatim term has been updated, so the VT is flagged to be updated in the external system during the next data exchange. These changes—such as a change to the verbatim term, a change to the dictionary term to which it is assigned, a change to the VTA or VTI, or a change to the relation—may be made in the repository or during a dictionary upgrade, for example.

• Source Term ID: Unique identifier for this verbatim term.

• Occurrence ID: Unique internal identifier for this occurrence of this verbatim term.

• External System: The external system that fed the term into TMS.

• Value 1 - 8: These fields can contain information about the verbatim term occurrence that is stored in the external system. Your company determines what information, if any, is displayed in these fields. If text is displayed in blue you can select it and click the Drill Down icon to see additional information. For instructions on setting up this feature, see Defining External System Information in TMS.

• Auxiliary Information: If the current dictionary has nonunique terms in its classification level, TMS displays the auxiliary information collected for each source term at the bottom of the All VTAs/VTIs tab.

Repository Terms

Use the Repository Terms block to search for the dictionary term or VTA to use as the new target of the changed VTA. After you execute a query, TMS displays terms that match the query in the classification level(s) and the verbatim term level. You can then choose one of the matches as a target for the reclassification.

For information about these fields, see Current Level Block Fields.

Data Filter Radio Buttons

Before entering your query criteria in one of the fields, choose which of these data groups you want to include in your search:

• Current VTAs and dictionary terms, or all VTAs and dictionary terms (both current and deleted)

• Approved dictionary terms only, Nonapproved dictionary terms only, both of these subsets, or none. Choosing None restricts your search to VTAs.

• Approved VTAs only, Nonapproved VTAs only, both of these subsets, or none. Choosing None restricts your search to dictionary terms.

More Tools

in addition, you can use these buttons:

• Highlight a term and click Above to see all of a term's relations in levels above. See The Above Button.

• Highlight a term and click Below to see all of a term's relations in levels below. See The Below Button.

• Reset the filter. See Setting Filters.

• Filter on auxiliary information. See DT Filter for Auxiliary Information.

Reclassifying a Verbatim Term

1. From the VTA/VTI Maintenance menu, select Reclassify Verbatim Terms. TMS opens the Reclassify Verbatim Terms window, and sets default values for many of the fields according to your profile settings. See Setting Filters and Creating Activity Lists to change these values for your session.
2. In the Distinct VTAs/VTIs tab, select one search criterion for VTAs:

   • No restricts your search to VTIs.

   • Approved VTAs only, Nonapproved VTAs only, or All VTAs.

     Note:

     This filter does not apply to VTIs, which are always created as Approved. If the current dictionary has nonunique terms in the classification level, all VTIs are displayed.

3. Query for the VTA or VTI you want to reclassify.
4. In the Repository Terms tab, select one search criterion for both VTAs and dictionary terms:

   • No retrieves none.

   • Approved only, Nonapproved only, or All VTAs or dictionary terms.

     Note:

     This filter does not apply to VTIs, which are not displayed here.

5. Select one:

   • Current retrieves current terms only.

   • All retrieves current and deleted terms.

6. If you select VTA as the Type option, the term will be reclassified to a VTA. If set to VTI, the term will be reclassified to a VTI.

   Reclassifying to a VTI can only be done on the All VTA/VTIs tab. If you select the VTI option on the Distinct VTA/VTIs tab, the Reclassify button will be disabled.

   VTI cannot be reclassifed to a VTA if the verbatim term is an unanswerable negative list action assignment.

7. Query for terms to which you might want to reclassify the verbatim term.
8. Highlight the term to which you want to reclassify the verbatim term and click Reclassify. The new classification is immediately available.
9. (Optional) To add an Informative Note for this reclassification, click Status/Notes or select Status/Notes from the Options menu. See Using the Status/Notes Pop-up Window.

Declassifying a Verbatim Term

You can declassify a verbatim term without reclassifying it to another dictionary term. This declassification creates an omission. The newly created omission will appear in the Classify VT Omissions window once you run Synchronization in the local TMS instance from which the verbatim term originated. In earlier releases, you had to run Autoclassification to see the omission created in TMS; now, only Synchronization is necessary. However, to update discrepancies in Oracle Clinical, you still must run Batch Validation.

When you declassify a verbatim term, all Informative Notes associated with that VTA expire.

1. From the VTA/VTI Maintenance menu, select Reclassify Verbatim Terms. TMS opens the Reclassify Verbatim Terms window, and sets default values for many of the fields according to your profile settings. See Setting Filters and Creating Activity Lists to change these values for your session.
2. In the Distinct VTAs/VTIs tab, select one search criterion for VTAs:

   • No restricts your search to VTIs.

   • Approved VTAs only, Nonapproved VTAs only, or All VTAs.

     Note:

     This filter does not apply to VTIs, which are always created as Approved. If the current dictionary has nonunique terms in the classification level, all VTIs are displayed.

3. Query for the VTA or VTI you want to declassify.
4. To declassify a VTA, stay in the Distinct VTAs/VTIs tab. You can also declassify a VTI in this tab, but to see its auxiliary information, select it in the Distinct VTAs/VTIs tab and then open the All VTAs/VTIs tab.
5. Click Declassify or Declassify and Action, which is available from the Distinct tab for VTAs and the All tab for VTIs. If you click Declassify and Action, select an action and modify its text if necessary.