Since the date of issue, this information is now out of date and has been archived. It has been made available for reference. 

Health Level Seven® International (HL7®) and the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO®) today announced a new two-year collaboration agreement to support the further adoption of working practices that facilitate the use of IHTSDO’s clinical terminology standards with HL7’s healthcare information technology standards. This new agreement expands the organizations’ collaborative work that began in 2009 and aims to improve healthcare on a global scale by advancing interoperability efforts to facilitate successful implementations. 

Both organizations share a commitment to avoiding duplication of effort and resolving issues related to gaps and overlaps in standards development. The collaboration focuses on targeted work to further support the implementation of IHTSDO’s SNOMED CT in HL7 products internationally including:

• Implementing licensing arrangements that support the use of SNOMED CT in the development of HL7 artifacts globally

• Providing policy and guidance direction when referencing SNOMED CT content

  
  

  Launching a joint project focusing on defining the best practice for the use of SNOMED CT with HL7’s Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) and Clinical Information Modeling Initiative (CIMI) in support of international use cases

• Providing input on the content of to HL7’s TermInfo standard in relation to the SNOMED CT content to ensure the guidance is up-to-date and accurate

  
  

  Ensuring the HL7 International terminology portal to access SNOMED CT International Release is maintained and updated

• Exploring the use of IHTSDO Open Tool Framework to review SNOMED CT and create value sets against defined requirements

• Developing a program to provide the HL7 community with education on SNOMED CT and its application in order to effectively implement SNOMED CT in HL7 products

Dr. Charles Jaffe, HL7 International CEO, said “HL7 is committed to working with IHTSDO in order to achieve interoperability on a global scale. Collaborations such as these are critical to advancing the delivery of safe and effective healthcare. By making it easier to incorporate SNOMED CT within HL7 products such as FHIR, this agreement will further facilitate the adoption and implementation of international standards-based healthcare solutions.”

“We are very pleased to renew this collaboration agreement and continue our relationship with HL7 International”, said Don Sweete, CEO IHTSDO. “It is essential that those responsible for standards work together to provide usable products and services for stakeholders across the globe”.