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An awareness of SNOMED CT features, components, characteristics and products provides an initial foundation on which to build greater understanding. It also informs discussions leading to decisions about adoption, implementation and use of this terminology.

What is this?

SNOMED CT

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Features

SNOMED CT:

• Is the most comprehensive, multilingual clinical healthcare terminology in the world.
• Is a resource with comprehensive, scientifically validated clinical content.
• Enables consistent, processable representation of clinical content in electronic health records.
• Is mapped to other international standards.
• Is already used in more than fifty countries.

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While reading the guide, you may find it useful to explore the content of SNOMED CT. You can do this using one of a range of online browsers listed on our web site at http://snomed.org/browsers. Note that the listed browsers are not endorsed by IHTSDO and they should only be used to a get feel for the content and structure of the terminology. It is useful to experiment with several different browsers as they vary in the way they present particular features of the terminology.

SNOMED CT

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Design and

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Development

SNOMED CT Components

SNOMED CT is a core clinical healthcare terminology that contains concepts with unique meanings and formal logic based definitions organized into hierarchies.
SNOMED CT content is represented using three types of component:

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Reference sets (Refsets) are a flexible standard approach used by SNOMED CT to support a variety of requirements for customization and enhancement of SNOMED CT. These include the representation of subsets, language preferences for use of particular terms and mapping from or to other code systems. Every reference set has a unique numeric concept identifier.

SNOMED CT

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Hierarchies

SNOMED CT concepts are organized in hierarchies. Within a hierarchy, concepts range from the more general to the more detailed. Related concepts in the hierarchy are linked using the |is a| relationship.

• Examples of some of the hierarchies include |clinical finding|, |procedure|, |observable entity|, |body structure| and |organism|.

SNOMED CT

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Characteristics -

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Comprehensive,

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Scalable and

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Flexible

SNOMED CT has a broad coverage of health related topics. It can be used to describe a patient's medical history, the details of an orthopedic procedure, the spread of epidemics, and much more. At the same time, the terminology has an unmatched depth, which enables clinicians to record data at the appropriate level of granularity.
Specific applications tend to focus on a restricted set of SNOMED CT, such as concepts related to ophthalmology. These subsets can be used to present relevant parts of the terminology, depending on the clinical context and local requirements. This means for example, that a drop down list to select diagnoses in an electronic health record in a mental health facility can be tailored to that setting. Similarly, subsets can be defined for problem lists for physician specialties or to provide appropriate medication lists for nurses in community care.
When individual jurisdictions have needs beyond those that can be reflected in a global terminology, perhaps due to requirements in local legislation, they can develop local or national extensions. Thus, even though SNOMED CT is global in scope, it can be adapted to each country's or areas requirements.
SNOMED CT maps work to provide explicit links to health related classifications and coding schemes in use around the world, e.g. statistical classifications such as ICD-9-CM, ICD-10, and ICD-O3. Maps to or from several national code systems are also available from, or under development, by IHTSDO Members. Maps to or from clinical domain specific code systems are also maintained by specialty groups with which IHTSDO has collaborative agreement. Maps facilitate reuse of SNOMED CT based clinical data for other purposes, such as reimbursement or statistical reporting.

Supporting

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Different Languages

SNOMED CT is a multinational, multilingual terminology. It has a built-in framework to manage different languages and dialects. The International Release includes a set of language independent concepts and relationships. Today, SNOMED CT is available in US English, UK English, Spanish, Danish and Swedish. Partial translations into Canadian French, Lithuanian, and several other languages are currently taking place, and further language translations are being planned by IHTSDO Members.
The basic objective of any SNOMED CT translation is to provide accurate representations of SNOMED CT concepts in a way that is understandable, usable, and safe. Translations must be concept based. Translators need to analyses concepts based on the fully specified name and take account of its position within the hierarchy, its descriptions, and its relationships to other concepts. This enables a meaningful translation of a concept based on phrases that are well used and clearly understood in all countries. The IHTSDO maintains guidelines and other materials to support countries undertaking translations.

SNOMED CT

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Products and

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Services

IHTSDO Members and organizations covered by the SNOMED CT Affiliate License have access to a range of products and services, including:

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