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SNOMED and NHS Conecting for Health propose international standards development organisation

From the College of American Pathologists

Northfield, Ill., USA. SNOMED International, a Division of The College of American
Pathologists (CAP) and NHS Connecting for Health, an Executive Agency of the
Department of Health in England, have announced a proposal to establish an international Standards Development Organization (SDO) to offer countries the opportunity to take a leading role in the development, ownership and maintenance of SNOMED Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT). NHS Connecting for Health is partnering with the CAP to support the creation of the SDO. An SDO development proposal is being discussed with healthcare information technology leaders worldwide to gauge the level of interest in establishing SNOMED CT as a global, worldwide clinical terminology.

SNOMED NHS SDO proposal

SNOMED CT is a standardized healthcare terminology including comprehensive
coverage of diseases, clinical findings, therapies, procedures and outcomes.
“The successful creation of an international SNOMED SDO will assure the clinical and technical integrity of the SNOMED CT global comprehensive clinical terminology. The SNOMED SDO will facilitate national healthcare systems in improving the health of their citizens through the use of information technology, which can serve as the foundation for the electronic medical health record,” said Thomas M. Sodeman, MD, FCAP, CAP President. “The CAP has made a great commitment to healthcare through its support of SNOMED CT’s development, maintenance and implementation. Furthering SNOMED CT development and use through an international SDO is the next logical step in facilitating SNOMED CT’s implementation worldwide.”

“NHS Connecting for Health, the Agency of England’s Department of Health, fully
supports the creation of the International SNOMED Development Organisation”, Richard Granger, CEO of NHS Connecting for Health, said. “SNOMED CT provides the first opportunity for global standards of healthcare terminology and therefore data. The adoption and co-development of this standard by Governments around the world presents the opportunity for significant health and efficiency benefits. The convenience of the Global System for Mobile (GSM) which has over 1,540,000,000 users today could be enjoyed in comparable terms by millions of clinicians in the future with the adoption of SNOMED CT. Implementing a standardised clinical terminology will also help to ensure that complex and dangerous data migration activities are mitigated or avoided.”

SNOMED CT provides the core general terminology for the electronic health record (EHR) and contains more than 357,000 concepts with unique meanings and formal logic-based definitions organized into hierarchies. When implemented in software applications, SNOMED CT represents clinically relevant information consistently, reliably and comprehensively as an integral part of producing electronic health records. SNOMED CT is considered to be the most comprehensive multilingual clinical healthcare terminology
available in the world.

“The SNOMED CT terminology standard is necessary for international interoperability and conformance,” said Franklin R. Elevitch, M.D. Chair, SNOMED International Authority. “The clinical and technical integrity of SNOMED CT needs to be preserved and expanded in an international environment that is owned and maintained for the benefit of citizens worldwide.”

More information www.snomed.org