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SNOMED CT Gets an Upgrade


August 11, 2008

The International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization in Copenhagen, Denmark, has released its second enhancement this year of the SNOMED CT clinical terminology.

The system offers a comprehensive database of standard medical terms and concepts that can be embedded in electronic health records systems. Expanded content in the terminology includes:

* Improvements have been made to the definitions of concepts in the Specimen hierarchy. Fully defined concepts enable automated processes to appropriately place concepts within the hierarchy, and aid in doing more complex searches.

* Standard naming conventions and consistent definitions have been implemented for many new imaging procedure concepts to enable easier data retrieval. For example, there are at least five common ways to name computer tomography procedures. With the improvements, physicians can continue using their preferred terms.

* Dose forms, such as "oral dosage," have been added to many concept definitions in the pharmaceutical/biological products hierarchy. This enables a computer-readable definition that the organization says improves a clinician's ability to identify specific drug products that have multiple dose forms. It also supports decision support systems to more readily differentiate between these forms for treatment, contraindications and adverse effects.

* More than 2,000 new organisms requested by public health authorities have been added to the organism hierarchy.

SNOMED CT now includes more than 315,000 active concepts, 806,000 active descriptions and 945,000 defining relationships. More information is available at ihtsdo.org.

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