The Consultant Terminologist Program has been undergoing a review for the past year, with both internal and external input. As part of that review, there have been many contributions to both identifying where changes could be made and also the benefits found from participating. To those that contributed, we want to thank you for your input!
We have concluded our evaluation and can now advise that the Consultant Terminologist Program will no longer be offered in the same format. Students who are currently enrolled will be able to complete the program and become certified. However, SNOMED International will not be accepting new students into the program. For prior participants needing to re-certify in 2018, the period of certification will extend for 12 months.
SNOMED International’s redesign of the terminologist education program will include the following elements:
Recertification will continue to be available for those currently certified. However in 2019 a new recertification process will be rolled out. While the full details have not been finalized, we will ensure that the Consultant Community of Practice is advised of the new process with sufficient time to meet the requirements.
As part of these changes, SNOMED International's terminologist education will reside entirely with the Education and Product Support team and will transition out of other areas such as Content and Mapping.
The Content Development Theory Course and the Consultant Terminologist Program will be redesigned into a streamlined, multi-level terminology authoring program. This program will start with a Level 1 Terminology Authoring Course, which will combine content development theory with a 'hands-on' authoring component using a training version of our terminology authoring platform. The Level 1 pilot is due to commence in September 2018.
Building on this, an advanced Level 2 Terminology Authoring Course will be piloted in late 2019. This online course will also include a hands-on component. We anticipate that this course will supersede the current Consultant Program. Further details of this course will be made available at a later date.