SNOMED International has published the SNOMED CT International Edition every six months, on 31st January and 31st July each year as its means of releasing the product. As the organization has been communicating over the past year, SNOMED International is transitioning to a more frequent delivery schedule of the SNOMED CT International Release Package. While this is a newly available feature, it is important to recognize that this enhancement only changes your current process if you or your National Release Center decides to consume frequent releases. 

Last year, SNOMED International began to pilot a more frequent delivery schedule of the SNOMED CT International Release Package. Making the product available on a monthly basis means less down-time required between release cycles, enabling faster turnaround of authoring content and a more agile and responsive terminology. Additionally, smaller content projects can potentially reduce the time required for urgent content changes. 

What does this mean in terms of how you consume SNOMED CT?

The SNOMED CT International release package will now be available on the last day of each month rather than just at the end of each January and July. Users may continue to consume SNOMED CT releases biannually in January and July. 

Monthly releases of SNOMED CT will continue to be made available from the Member Licensing and Distribution Service (MLDS.) MLDS contains SNOMED International releases, both Production and Alpha (technology previews), available for Members to download. 

Who do I contact for more information? 

Direct any questions you have regarding frequent releases to releases@snomed.org

Click here For information on the February 2022 release, including release notes, and review our Frequently Asked Questions on monthly releases for more information.