What is SNOMED CT?

An international standardized clinical terminology built to support capture of clinical information in electronic medical records systems. It is used as a standard source for terms and codes in the electronic exchange of certain important categories of health data such as conditions, family history, and social history. For example,

• Diabetes Mellitus - 73211009

• Family history of breast cancer - 429740004

• Never smoked tobacco - 266919005

According to SNOMED International, SNOMED CT is the world’s most comprehensive clinical terminology.

Terminologies originally created by the College of American Pathologists (CAP) and England’s National Health Service (NHS) were combined in 2007 to form the initial version of SNOMED CT. The content is now maintained, published, and licensed by SNOMED International - a member country organization with over 40 members, including the United States.

What Content is in SNOMED CT?

SNOMED CT currently contains more than 365,000 healthcare concepts, divided into 19 top-level categories that include core content such as clinical findings and disorders, procedures, substances and medicinal products, and observables. It also includes a variety of supporting categories for content including body parts, organisms, and specimen types.

Concepts have a preferred name as well as a number of other supported synonyms. Translations to other languages such as Spanish, or Dutch are available in the corresponding national extensions.

While SNOMED CT has content to generally cover all aspects of clinical care, it is not a singular standard across all shareable electronic health information. For example, in the United States, RXNORM is used instead of SNOMED CT as the standard for representing medication information.

How is SNOMED CT Used in the United States?

The US Edition of SNOMED CT is a key standard clinical terminology within the United States. According to the National Library of Medicine (NLM), which distributes SNOMED CT in the U.S., it is one of a suite of designated standards for use in U.S. Federal Government systems for the electronic exchange of clinical health information and is also a required standard in interoperability specifications of the U.S. Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel.

One can clearly see the importance of SNOMED CT in US Healthcare by looking at the United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI), published by the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC). This lays out the official recommendations for use of clinical terminologies in the representation of health care data being exchanged between different organizations for treatment of patients or coordination of their care. SNOMED CT also occupies a key role in the use of electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs) which are used to evaluate the healthcare quality and efficiency.

How is SNOMED CT Related to other Healthcare Standards Efforts?

SNOMED International maintains a wide variety of clinical, commercial partnerships with organizations such as the American Dental Association (ADA), European Renal Dialysis Association (ERA), Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), International Council of Nurses (ICN), International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP), INSERM, World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA), and others.

It also maintains collaboration agreements with a variety of other standards organizations such as DICOM, Global Medical Device Nomenclature Agency (GMDNA), LOINC, HL7, and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Questions About SNOMED?