This section provides an overview of:
- features
Exploring Exploring
- design and development
- components and
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- SNOMED CT characteristics
- SNOMED CT supporting different languages
- SNOMED CT products and services
Why is this important?
An awareness of
features features,
, 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 Features
:
When implemented in software applications,
can be used to represent clinically relevant information consistently, reliably and comprehensively as an integral part of producing electronic health information.
Implementation requires an understanding of the way that
content is represented by
and supported by
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(Refsets).
Exploring SNOMED CT
While reading the guide, you may find it useful to explore the content of
. You can do this using one of a range of online
listed on our web site
at httpat https://www.implementation.snomed.org/browsers. Note that the listed
are not endorsed by
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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
as they vary in the way they present particular features of the terminology.
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SNOMED CT Design and Development
SNOMED CT Components
SNOMED CT is a core clinical healthcare terminology that contains
with unique meanings and formal logic based definitions organized into
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.
content is represented using three types of
:
...
These
are supplemented by
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, which provide additional flexible features and enable configuration of the terminology to address different requirements.
Concepts
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represent clinical thoughts, ranging from
|abscess
| to
|zygote
|. Every
has a unique numeric
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. Within each
are organized from the general to the more detailed. This allows detailed clinical data to be recorded and later accessed or aggregated at a more general level.
Descriptions
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link appropriate human readable terms to
. A
can have several associated
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, each representing a
that describes the same clinical concept. Each
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of
includes an additional set of
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, which link
in another
to the same
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. Every
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has a unique numeric
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| t | description identifier. |
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Relationships
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link concepts to other
whose meaning is related in some way. These
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provide formal definitions and other properties of the
. One type of
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is the
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relationship which which relates a
to more general
.
These These | Gloss |
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define relationships define the
of
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...
For example, the
|viral pneumonia| has a |causative agent| relationship to the |virus| and a |finding site| | Gloss |
|---|
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to the |lung|.
Every
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has a unique numeric
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| t | identifier. |
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Reference sets
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(Refsets) are a flexible standard approach used by
to support a variety of requirements for customization and enhancement of
. These include the representation of
, language preferences for use of particular
and
from or to other code systems. Every
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has a unique numeric
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SNOMED CT Hierarchies
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are organized in hierarchies. Within a
range from the more general to the more detailed. Related
in the
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 Characteristics - Comprehensive, Scalable and Flexible
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.
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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
. Thus, even though
is global in scope, it can be adapted to each country's or areas requirements.
maps work to provide explicit links to health related classifications and coding schemes in use around the world, e.g.
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such as
, and
. Maps to or from several national code systems are also available from, or under development, by
. Maps to or from clinical domain specific code systems are also maintained by specialty groups with which
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has collaborative agreement. Maps facilitate reuse of
based clinical data for other purposes, such as reimbursement or statistical reporting.
Supporting Different Languages
is a multinational, multilingual terminology. It has a built-in framework to manage different
and
. The
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includes a set of language independent
and
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. Today,
is is available in
US English, UK English, Spanish, Danish and Swedish. Partial many | Gloss |
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into Canadian French, Lithuanian, and several other are currently taking place, and further | Gloss |
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are being planned by The that can be viewed in the SNOMED International SNOMED CT Browser. The basic objective of any
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is to provide accurate representations of
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in a way that is understandable, usable, and safe.
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must be
based. Translators need to analyse
based on the
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and take account of its position within the
, its
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, and its
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to other
. This enables a meaningful
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of a
based on phrases that are well used and clearly understood in all countries.
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maintains guidelines and other materials to support countries undertaking translations.
SNOMED CT Products and Services
and organizations covered by the SNOMED CT
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have access to a range of products and services, including:
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