Representing Traditional East Asian Medicine in International Health Informatics Standards: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Background/Objectives: Traditional East Asian medicine (TEAM), comprising traditional Korean medicine (TKM), traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), and Japanese Kampo, is increasingly recorded in electronic health records, and sharing these data depends on interoperability standards. Yet, TEAM concepts rest on conceptual foundations differing from those of biomedical standards. Prior reviews examined traditional medicine’s own systems, not how TEAM concepts fit into mainstream biomedical standards. This review examined how TEAM concepts have been mapped or modeled into international health informatics standards. Methods: Following JBI methodology and PRISMA-ScR guidelines with a Population, Concept, and Context framework, we searched PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and IEEE Xplore for English reports from January 2016 to March 2026, with gray literature and citation searching. Screening was conducted by a single reviewer with senior verification and a 10% inter-rater reliability check. Findings were synthesized descriptively by functional category and clinical object type. Results: Of 16,763 records, 10 studies (2017 to 2026) were included; seven addressed TCM, three TKM, and none Kampo. Terminology work predominated, most often SNOMED CT, UMLS, and MeSH. The OMOP Common Data Model was the only data model, and no exchange standard such as HL7 FHIR appeared. Representability followed a gradient by clinical object type: acupuncture points anchored directly to terminologies, whereas only 1 of 260 ICD-11 Chapter 26 patterns had a SNOMED CT equivalent. Symptoms and disorders fit only partially, and compound herbal medicines required extension or decomposition. Most studies supplemented standards locally, and none of their additions were incorporated into a released standard. Conclusions: The work identified here has centered on establishing shared meaning rather than moving data between systems, and because supplementation stays external, the same gaps recur. Because the search covered only English-language, internationally indexed reports, these findings, including the absence of Kampo, reflect internationally visible work rather than the full literature published in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese national databases. Priorities are upstreaming TEAM content, encoding it in exchange standards, and building dedicated content for patterns.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Healthcare, 2026 · DOI ↗