Understanding how wildcards can expand the scope of mappings

A wildcard represents unknown or variable information. When creating group mappings by specialty, body part, and patient location, you can include wildcards as part of the source pattern. The % character is the wildcard character.

The table that follows describes how the placement of the wildcard affects the results of the mapping:

Syntax	Description	Example	What is matched
% character preceding the text string	Matches all characters after the %.	%HEAD	Looks for all strings ending with HEAD.
% character following the text string	Matches all characters before the %.	HEAD%	Looks for all strings starting with HEAD.
% character bracketing the text string	Matches the characters between the %.	%HEAD%	Looks for all strings containing HEAD.
Multiple pattern matching rules	Matches wildcards.	%CT%HEAD%	Looks for strings containing CT and HEAD.

For example, if the following study descriptions all get mapped the same way, you could cover them with the source pattern CTAB%.

• CTAB

• CTAB+

• CTAB-

• CTAB +/1

• CTABAP

• CTABAP1

• CTAB-T

Use wildcards in mappings to:

• Reduce the number of study description entries that need to be configured for the system

• Improve mapping reliability

• Provide the option of matching based on internal or external specialties

When a study description matches two or more source patterns with wildcards, rule numbers are used to determine how to group the study, as explained in Understanding how rule numbers determine best matches.