1. Release Notes—What's New
  2. What's New
  3. Enhancements to Oracle Argus Safety
  4. Duplicate search updates
  5. Smart duplicate search

Smart duplicate search

Summary

The duplicate resolution process is enhanced and made more efficient by providing new and smart duplicate search algorithm. The smart duplicate search algorithm returns match score with each search result, so that, the user can focus on the records in the order of match score to make a decision faster. The new smart search algorithm eliminates human skill and variability from success of the search, wherein the user can enter the complete search criteria at once eliminating the need of multiple iterations to find a matching case. (Enhancement 36190011)

Description

The existing duplicate search present in Oracle Argus does not return results in order of relevancy or ranking. Due to this, the process of duplicate resolution is inefficient as the user has to go through a long list of search results. Also, a case does not show up in the results even if one of the entered search criteria does not match. The Smart Duplicate Search algorithm overcome the challenges of the existing algorithm and makes the duplicate resolution process more efficient in the following ways:
  • User can now find the required record faster by focusing on the search results in the order of match score rather than going through the existing unordered complete list of search results.
  • Smart duplicate search considers all the values present in the incoming record or search criteria for finding potential matching records. It returns the matching case record, even if some of the values in search criteria does not match as those values does not contribute to the total match score. This new logic is unlike the existing duplicate search functionality which does not return a record even if one criteria does not match.
System configuration changes for Smart Duplicate Search
  • A new tree view item Duplicate Search is added to the Case Processing section in Console > System Configuration > System Management (Common Profile Switches).
  • A Global switch Enable Smart Duplicate Search is added under this new item to enable or disable the Smart Duplicate Search feature in the application. By default, the smart duplicate search is enabled.
  • The enterprise-level configuration option is added to set the record-level score threshold. The default value of this option is 50 to display records in the duplicate search results having a score of equal to or more than the pre-configured value.
Score field inclusion
  • The Score field is added to the duplicate search results such that the highest score results always appear on the top and user can focus on reviewing the results in the order of score.
  • The Score field is added to the following screens in the application:
    • Initial case Entry > Search
    • ICSR Pending > Duplicate Search > Search
    • Local Affiliate > Incoming Review > Search
Match Score Explanation screen
  • Clicking on the Score for the selected record from the duplicate search results, opens the Match Score Explanation screen.
  • The Match Score Explanation screen shows the comparison of values, which are searched with the corresponding values in the matching case record. You can also view the contribution of each field to the total match score along with the match type, i.e., it is an exact match or similar values or no match; so as to take a decision on whether the incoming record is a duplicate or follow of the selected record or not.
  • If the Reference ID or case number matches, then this field is prioritized over the rest of the fields and the case record is considered as a match with 100 score ignoring the match score contribution for rest of the fields. The Match Type is Priority Match in this scenario.
  • Total Score for the record is rounded off to a whole number, and hence there can be round off error between the sum of individual field scores and total score.
Smart search algorithm

The new smart search algorithm use fuzziness such that you can enter all the search criteria at once and the records are returned based on the total score. It is possible that one or more of the search criteria does not match a record in the result, but it still appears in the results list, if the total score is higher than the configured score.

For example, for a Record Threshold of 50, only matching cases with score of 50 or more are displayed in the list.

The following are the main features provided by the smart search algorithm:

  • Numerical Scoring—Smart Search algorithm applies numerical scoring to the numeric and date fields so that the entered search criteria matches the value in the case record if the value is within pre-defined threshold. For example, for a threshold of 1 month, the patient age of 12 months should match 11 months. Similarly, for a threshold of 15 days, the Event Onset date 10-Jan-24 should match 20-Jan-2024. The lower is the deviation between the search criteria and the matching value, higher is the score contribution, and vice-versa.
  • Soundex—A feature to match misspelled text fields or names with similar sounds is available as per the existing functionality using the Full Search check box on the Initial Case Entry screen.
  • Weighted Matching—Each matching attribute contributes differently to the scores based on the pre-configured weight. For example, if Patient DOB has more weight configured than Patient Age, then the Patient DOB field contributes more to the total score than the Patinet Age field.
  • Transposed Date Matching—Transposed date, i.e., date with day and month swapped is also considered as a match with more score to an original date than the transposed date. For example, Patient DOB: 10-Jan-2024 matches 01-Oct-2024.
  • Exclusion Criteria—This is to ensure that there are no performance issues. If any of the following fields does not match, then the record is excluded from the search results:
    • Report Type
    • COI
    • Gender
    • Initial Receipt Date

    Note:

    As the above fields are part of the exclusion criteria, and hence these fields do not contribute to the match score, and does not show up in the match score card as well. Initial Receipt Date is an exception and the field contributes to match score as well as appears in the match score card due to numerical scoring.

Parent topic: Duplicate search updates