Executive Summary

The SNOMED CT Implementation Guide for NCPT (Nutrition Care Process Terminology) offers practical guidance and tools for professionals to effectively integrate SNOMED CT in nutrition and dietetics care. This guide is designed as a valuable resource for clinicians and technical implementers, providing clear, actionable steps to standardize SNOMED CT implementation within nutrition care processes. It emphasizes the NCPT (Nutrition Care Process Terminology) reference set as a key strategy for enhancing documentation quality in this field.

The guide is organized into chapters, beginning with an introduction that outlines essential background, scope, and target audience. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the Nutrition Care Process (NCP) Model and its accompanying terminology (NCPT), which is supported by several countries. Chapter 3 presents use cases that inspired this guide, illustrating clinical scenarios where SNOMED CT implementation benefits nutrition and dietetics care. Chapter 4 describes the SNOMED CT concepts used to document each of the four steps in the NCP Model: nutrition assessment and reassessment, diagnosis, intervention, and monitoring and evaluation.

Chapters 1 through 4 are intended for clinicians, as well as technical and informatics professionals. The final chapters, Chapter 5 (Information Models and Terminology) and Chapter 6 (Technical Application), provide in-depth technical guidance on terminology, information models, and nutrition-related standards, crucial for professionals involved in SNOMED CT technical and software implementation projects.

Appendices provide additional resources, including guidance for clinicians and professionals seeking further understanding of SNOMED CT terminology and related topics.

SNOMED International aims to develop a web-based demonstration tool (“demonstrator”) to illustrate the guide’s principles and techniques in practice.

This guide is relevant to healthcare providers, information managers, and software developers interested in learning how SNOMED CT can support documentation, clinical decision support (CDS), and interoperability in nutrition and dietetics care. Information managers can see how SNOMED CT integrates within health information models, and software developers can understand how to embed SNOMED CT in applications and enable clinical data exchange using HL7 FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources).

The guide, initiated by the NCPT Project Group in 2017 and advanced by the SNOMED International Nutrition and Dietetics Clinical Reference Group (CRG) since 2023, provides comprehensive, practical guidance for integrating SNOMED CT into workflows within nutrition and dietetics. The CRG oversees the content to ensure accuracy and relevance, with contributions from SNOMED International’s implementation support team for the technical chapters.