Apelon
Continuous Evolution of Medical Terminology

The challenges faced by Pharmaceutical Industry are related to managing terminology data as it is mission-critical for national ministries, standards collaborations, and large multi-national organizations. Simplifying the problems of this industry is Apelon, provider of terminology and data interoperability solutions for healthcare enterprises, life sciences organizations and government agencies. The company is helping in improving the quality, comparability, and accessibility of clinical information.

“Some other problems faced in this sector include integrating data across a set of hospitals, sharing health data within a community, or building a wide-area public health reporting system is another problem. And the unstructured and de-normalized extensive warehouse of clinical information,” says Stephen Coady, CEO of Apelon.

With over twenty years experience in the development and management of data standards, Apelon has developed processes, tools and systems that eliminate terminology “stove-pipes” and enable organizations to better manage their vocabularies, code sets, and terminologies.

The company provides services in three areas of practice namely consulting, product and content. Consulting services enhances existing terminology field, or creation of new infrastructure. Product services provide comprehensive support services and open source vocabulary tools, giving the developers of healthcare applications the best-in-class terminology capabilities. Lastly, content services for healthcare applications eliminating the cost and confusion of dealing with different terminology data structures and updating of schedules.

The company’s product line includes Distributed Terminology System (DTS) for managing, integrating, deploying and extending standard terminologies, which has electronic medical record structure, real time decision support arrangement, order-entry system, and interface engines. While the other creations being TermWorks, a web-based service offering for terminology mapping capabilities; Terminology Development Environment (TDE), a software solution used for creating, managing and maintaining terminologies; and Mycroft a standalone, multi-terminology browser that makes access easy, explore and search complex standardized terminologies.

Apelon has developed processes, tools and a systems that enable organizations to better manage their vocabularies, code sets, and terminologies

Apelon’s tools and services have been instrumental in assisting major content creation efforts with College of American Pathologist, Veteran’s Health Affairs National Drug File, the National Library of Medicine, the National Cancer Institute Thesaurus, UMDNS (Unified Medical Device Nomenclature System), and ICD-9-CM (International Classification of Diseases, ninth revision, Clinical Modification).

Apelon products and services have assisted in the integration and deployment of standardized terminology for healthcare organizations such as Allscripts, Elsevier, Kaiser Permanente, NextGen Healthcare, Oracle and Philips Medical Systems, and biotech companies such as Ardais, Celera Genomics, and Deltagen. “We continuously enhance our expertise through involvement in terminology research and development of best practices, collaborating with research agencies and academic centers such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Mayo Clinic, Ohio State University, and Stanford University,” adds Coady.

The company’s roadmap ahead is also based on these lines of evolving and enhancing medical terminology through research and development and maintaining the standards of national ministries. The company also has an ongoing commitment to industry leadership, participating in national and international forums including the International Medical Information Association, American Medical Informatics Association, MedInfo, HL7, ISO and the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization (IHTSDO).