SNOMED CT – The Systematized Nomenclature of Medical Clinical Terms
- Provides the core medical terminology used in recording clinical data in the EHR. It is a globally recognized controlled healthcare vocabulary that provides a common language for electronic health applications.
- Was created from a merger and further development of 2 previous terminologies: SNOMED RT (Reference Terminology) by the College of American Pathologists and Clinical Terms Version 3 (CTV3) by the National Health Services of the UK.
- Property rights now rest with the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization (IHDTSO), which promotes use of SNOMED CT internationally.
- Components of SNOMED CT include concepts (clinical meanings arranged hierarchically), descriptions (linking to concepts), and relationships (linking concepts). SNOMED CT hierarchies are created through defining relationships linking one concept to another concept for the purpose of defining each concept down to its specific meaning.
- It is considered the most comprehensive, multilingual clinical healthcare terminology in the world and integrates concepts from multiple nursing terminologies and classification systems.
- It is considered a universal health care terminology and messaging structure. It enables a consistent way of capturing, sharing, and aggregating health data across specialties and sistes of care.
- In nursing, SNOMED enables terminology from one system to be mapped to concepts from another system. These include Clinical Care Classification, International Classification of Nursing Practice, North American Nursing Diagnosis Association Taxonomy, Nursing Interventions Classification, Nursing Outcomes Classification, Omaha System, and Perioperative Nursing Data Set.
- There is a SNOMED CT International Nursing Working Group charged by the SNOMED International Editorial Board to work with nursing terminology developers to enhance the nursing terminology contenet within SNOMED CT.
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