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Table 1 VAPD 2014–2017 standardized nomenclature

From: Veterans Affairs patient database (VAPD 2014–2017): building nationwide granular data for clinical discovery

Term

Conceptual definition

Patient-facility-day

An individual calendar date that a patient spent in the hospital (sta6a)

Hospitalization

One or more consecutive acute specialty stays

Bedded stay

Any stay in a healthcare facility where a patient is provided a bed, including hospital, nursing facility, mental health facility, or domiciliary for homeless Veterans

Specialty stay

A portion of a bedded stay defined by the treating specialty. Each bedded stay is composed of one or more specialty stays

Specialty transfer

When patient’s care is transitioned from one treating specialty to another

Acute specialty stay

A specialty stay that is for an acute medical condition

Non-acute specialty stay

A specialty stay that is not for an acute medical condition

Facility laboratory code

Facility-specific code linked to lab test names

Facility LOINC

Facility-specific code linked to LOINC codes [12]

Facility laboratory test name

The name used to identify a lab test at a specific site (e.g. white blood cell count, WBC)

Laboratory test synonyms

Other clinical names for the same laboratory test (e.g. blood gas, carbon dioxide both map to the same lab test)

Topography

A specific description of an anatomic region of the body where lab specimen was drawn (e.g. arterial blood, plasma, blood, serum)

  1. Terms are ordered by order of appearance in the text. A complete list of VAPD 2014–2017 standardized nomenclature can be found in Additional file 1: Appendix A of the Online Data Supplement