Summary
Medical eponyms are medical words derived from people’s names. Eponyms, especially
similar sounding eponyms, may be confusing to people trying to use them because the
terms themselves do not contain physiologically descriptive words about the condition
they refer to. Through the use of electronic health records (EHRs), embedded applied
clinical informatics tools including synonyms and pick lists that include physiologically
descriptive terms associated with any eponym appearing in the EHR can significantly
enhance the correct use of medical eponyms. Here we describe a case example of two
similar sounding medical eponyms – Wegener’s disease and Wegner’s disease – which
were confused in our EHR. We describe our solution to address this specific example
and our suggestions and accomplishments developing more generalized approaches to
dealing with medical eponyms in EHRs. Integrating brief physiologically descriptive
terms with medical eponyms provides an applied clinical informatics opportunity to
improve patient care.
Keywords
Medical eponyms - electronic health records - integrated clinical decision support
- patient safety - system improvement
