Executive Summary

The SNOMED CT Clinical Implementation Guide for Cancer Synoptic Reporting serves as a comprehensive resource designed to facilitate standardized and structured reporting in cancer care.  The guide highlights the role of SNOMED CT in standardizing and enhancing cancer reporting practices. SNOMED CT, as a comprehensive clinical terminology, includes clinical concepts that can be used to represent cancer diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes. By adopting SNOMED CT in cancer synoptic reporting, healthcare organizations can improve the quality of information captured, facilitate data exchange, support research initiatives, and enhance collaboration among healthcare providers.

The guide is aimed at providing clinicians with an overview of the content of SNOMED CT that supports cancer synoptic reporting. In addition the guide provides detailed description for vendors and system developers wishing to implement the approach within systems.

The guide underscores the pivotal role of synoptic reporting in improving the quality of cancer care by ensuring that critical data elements are accurately documented and easily shared across different healthcare settings. Through the use of standardized terminology and structured templates, healthcare professionals can streamline the documentation process, reduce variability in reporting reporting practices, and promote adherence to evidence-based guidelines.

In the realm of oncology, the guide provides examples of how synoptic reporting can benefit specific scenarios such as hematologic malignancy evaluations, cervical cancer screenings, and neuro-oncology tumor resections. By capturing detailed information about tumor characteristics, diagnostic findings, treatment interventions, and post-operative care, synoptic reports play a crucial role in guiding clinical decision-making and optimizing patient outcomes.

The guide demonstrates how existing standards, such as SNOMED CT and HL7 FHIR Questionnaires, can be effectively utilized to create implementable and shareable representations of synoptic reporting forms. By leveraging SNOMED CT within structured templates and questionnaires, healthcare professionals can capture detailed and clinically relevant information in a consistent and interoperable format. This approach not only ensures the accuracy and completeness of data but also enables seamless sharing and analysis of information across different healthcare systems and settings.

The guide serves as a roadmap for healthcare organizations looking to implement SNOMED CT in cancer synoptic reporting, providing practical guidance on how to leverage existing standards to create standardized, structured, and clinically meaningful synoptic reports. By following the recommendations outlined in the guide, healthcare providers can streamline reporting processes, improve data quality, and ultimately enhance the delivery of care to patients with cancer.