Global nursing report emphasizes need for digital health competency Back 11 Jul 2025 Back SNOMED International salutes the State of the World’s Nursing 2025 , a recently released report that provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of the global nursing workforce. Framed in the context of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development , an “action plan for people, the planet and prosperity,” the nursing report confirms that the 12 policy priorities of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global strategic directions for nursing and midwifery 2025 remain highly relevant for the period 2026-2030. It also identifies five emerging policy priorities in the areas of advanced practice nursing, gender equality, digital health and technology, the climate agenda, and nurses in situations of war and conflict. According to the report, nurses – the largest occupational group in the healthcare sector with about 28 million practitioners worldwide – “must be prepared and fully supported to competently utilize digital technologies across areas of professional practice from education to practice, research and management." SNOMED International has long supported this goal, initially informally, and then more formally beginning in 2020, when SNOMED International and the International Council of Nurses (ICN) announced an agreement to work together to integrate the International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP) into SNOMED CT in a systematic way. The formal collaboration followed ICN’s review of its role in health informatics globally, enabling them to develop a strategy for supporting nursing globally. In 2021, SNOMED International released the first ICNP SNOMED CT Nursing Practice Reference Set . The reference set, which is updated and released annually, helps ensure that nursing remains connected to the larger health information landscape. Nursing content in SNOMED CT also helps to ensure that SNOMED CT continues to adequately reflect global nursing practice; that information collected using ICNP can link to SNOMED CT encoded records and be shared with other healthcare professionals to support care; that nursing care can be captured in a standardized way, reducing inconsistencies; and that the sharing of ICNP-based information can be facilitated in a standardised way to support delivery of patient care, usage for research purposes and participation in health policy making. “The inclusion of nursing content in SNOMED CT greatly augments its value and utility,” says SNOMED International CEO Don Sweete. “It also supports the level of granularity nursing needs while connecting the profession to the broader healthcare community.” SNOMED International supports digital health in nursing practice in other ways as well. In 2024, ICN President Dr Pamela Cipriano (now outgoing), who is also a professor of nursing and public policy at the University of Virginia’s School of Nursing and Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, delivered the James Read Memorial Lecture at the SNOMED CT Expo 2024 in Korea. Dr Cipriano, in addition to focusing on how healthcare data fuels nursing care improvement and innovation, discussed how the ICN had adopted a position statement on digital health transformation and nursing practice in which it called for a new terminology standard that facilitates the representation and comparison of nursing domains worldwide. “Nurses have long been involved in the informatics world and that may not be apparent because that work is usually shrouded with what’s happening in a team or in an organization, but nurses have really come to the forefront in terms of telehealth – being app developers, creating health tracking mechanisms and creating the interface for and use of a lot of devices,” Dr Cipriano said in her address. “Nurses are typically on the front and the back ends of the use of most major technology.” SNOMED International also hosts a Nursing Clinical Reference Group , a community of practice for nursing-focused clinicians where participants can discuss issues and influence the development and improvement of content in SNOMED CT. The group ensures that the requirements of the international nursing community are incorporated into the content of SNOMED CT International Release and supports the development of nursing and nursing documentation derivative products. Learn more about the SNOMED International - International Council of Nurses collaboration . Learn more about the ICNP reference set. View SNOMED CT and nursing related videos on our YouTube channel . Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

Both the Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organization (IKNL) and Dutch Institute for Clinical Auditing (DICA) collect patient data concerning esophageal and gastric cancer, albeit with different primary purposes‚ÄîIKNL for statistics and research and DICA for auditing and research. To enhance the efficiency of data collection, IKNL and DICA have initiated a joint effort to harmonize their registries. This poster presents the methodology used to align these registries with electronic health records (EHRs) and describes how SNOMED CT contributes to the standardization of their datasets, enabling consistent and streamlined clinical data reporting. Back View Map IKNL (1 of 2) Efficient and unified cancer data collection: The role of SNOMED CT in linking registries and electronic health records Read More Country / Region EMEA Tags Collaboration, Data analytics, Data quality, Mapping, Research Both the Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organization (IKNL) and Dutch Institute for Clinical Auditing (DICA) collect patient data concerning esophageal and gastric cancer, albeit with different primary purposes‚ÄîIKNL for statistics and research and DICA for auditing and research. To enhance the efficiency of data collection, IKNL and DICA have initiated a joint effort to harmonize their registries. This poster presents the methodology used to align these registries with electronic health records (EHRs) and describes how SNOMED CT contributes to the standardization of their datasets, enabling consistent and streamlined clinical data reporting. Description This research focuses on the harmonization of the overlapping items between two national registries‚Äîmanaged by the Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organization (IKNL) and the Dutch Institute for Clinical Auditing (DICA)‚ that collect data on patients with esophageal and gastric cancer. The aim is to align these datasets while simultaneously standardize clinical terminology (among others SNOMED CT) and prepare (future) integration with electronic health record (EHR) systems. This will enhance data interoperability, minimize redundancy, and enable more effective use of clinical information for research, auditing, and reporting purposes. Ultimately this will also contribute to a reduction of the registration burden and an improvement of data quality. Scope The Dutch government decided that SNOMED-CT should be implemented as a standard in electronic health records (EHR). Our goal is to prepare for (future) integration with electronic health record (EHR) systems and therefore it was investigated how SNOMED CT can contribute to standardization of the harmonized data set. How SNOMED CT will be used SNOMED CT is used in the new proposals for the harmonized data set. Why SNOMED CT will be used Contact More information Learn more Get SNOMED CT Information about our license and fee structure Learn more Learn more Explore the wide range of resources available to our community of practice Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

Blog: Supporting a growing and increasingly engaged community of Spanish speaking users Back 8 Jul 2021 Back By: Suzy Roy Customer Relations Lead, Americas & Collaborations Specialist In this interview, Suzy Roy, SNOMED International's Customer Relations Lead, Americas, and Collaboration Specialist, discusses the resources available to Spanish-speaking SNOMED CT users and the organization’s most recent efforts to facilitate knowledge-sharing among those users. SNOMED International publishes a Spanish version of the SNOMED CT International Edition every April and October. Why? SR : In 2007, SNOMED International (which was then called the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization, or IHTSDO) acquired the rights for SNOMED CT from the U.S. College of American Pathologists (CAP) with the goal of making the development of a global clinical language for healthcare an international, collaborative effort. Those rights included the Spanish language version, which CAP had been producing since the mid-1990s. We continued to produce it because of that historical legacy, and our community of Spanish-speaking users continues to grow and flourish. How is the Spanish version of SNOMED CT different from a Spanish-language community extension? SR : The (English-only) International Edition is published every July and January; the Spanish version of the clinical terminology is an exact translation of that International Edition. At the same time, SNOMED CT is designed to allow the International Edition to be enhanced by adding extensions to meet national or local requirements without compromising the main body of SNOMED CT. This is intended to meet the needs of different languages, specialties, countries, regions, vendors and healthcare institutions. Are there any themes, content areas or issues that are currently (or becoming) particularly important to Spanish-speaking users as relate to SNOMED CT? Is there much of a difference between Spanish-speaking users in Latin America and Europe in those issues? SR : The Spanish Edition is purely a translation so there are no content variations at that level, but many Members do have regional needs. Over the past year, for example, Members from Uruguay and Argentina shared the pressing need for COVID-19 concepts – initially for the disease and more recently for the vaccines. But because we are not including brand-specific vaccine information in the International Edition, they won’t get that in the Spanish Edition. To bridge that delta, they focused on including that information in their community extensions. Why is the Spanish Edition published on a different schedule from the International Edition? SR : It’s done that way so we have enough time to produce the translation. Once the International Edition is finalized, we need a couple of months to translate all the new concepts, descriptions and relationships. Who contributes to and completes the translation? SR : A couple of our Members from Spain provide the translation, but we have an online community discussion area where questions related to topics such as the translation of particular concepts can be discussed with other Spanish-speakers. A number of participants from Uruguay, as well as from termMed IT, a company that provides terminology services to organizations aiming to implement and / or support regional implementations of SNOMED CT, support the translation effort. In the past, Members from Argentina have participated as well. Many languages have regional dialects that use different formal and informal terminologies. That’s true for English and for Spanish as well. How does the Spanish Edition deal with this regional variety? SR : We try to use the most standardized, neutral terminology possible, but the translation is probably geared slightly more to the dialect of those working on the translation. We also allow Members to use those community extensions to better tailor the terminology to their linguistic needs. We provide the introductory course on SNOMED CT in Spanish as well as in English. Can you speak to how popular that course is with Spanish-speaking users and whether there are any other educational offerings in Spanish (or plans to do so)? SR: Since its inception, 215 Spanish-speakers have completed the Curso de Fundamentos . It has been very popular since Sociedad Italiana de Beneficencia en Buenos Aires, commonly referred to as Hospital Italiano , announced plans to deliver SNOMED CT education in Spanish within select Latin American countries. What other resources (non-educational) and/or tools do we make available in Spanish? SR : We are really trying to get some momentum going for our Spanish users! We just created a Spanish-speaking users community area on Confluence, which was created to facilitate communication, share lessons learned, foster connections between colleagues of different nationalities and enable participants to ask each other questions and provide answers. So far, Members from Spain, Uruguay and Argentina are participating, along with a number of non-Members in Mexico and Ecuador. The landing page is completely translated into Spanish and provides a number of links that can direct visitors to the appropriate resource depending on the information they are seeking. For example, if they are a Member, it will direct them to their National Release Center; if they are a non-Member, they may be seeking information on licensing SNOMED CT. This page also provides links to educational resources that have been translated, so it’s more like a toolkit. The conversations in this community area have already been very valuable. Someone provided feedback about an issue they spotted on the SNOMED CT browser in the Spanish editions. We had a great conversation with both Members and non-Members participating, and, in the end, the SNOMED International tech team fixed the problem. That’s what we’re hoping this discussion forum can be – a place where people can feel comfortable seeking and sharing information in Spanish. Many Spanish-speaking SNOMED CT users are highly engaged with both the product and with SNOMED International, which is reflected in the many Spanish-language events that various users host or participate in and in our regular webinars and our yearly Expos. Can you discuss that engagement and how that ultimately benefits the patients of the countries those users represent? SR : We do have a number of highly engaged Spanish-speaking Member country users who participate in webinars and present at our yearly Expo. We also have a number of power users from non-Member countries such as Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico who act as champions for SNOMED CT in their countries. This engagement helps everyone by eliminating some of the isolation non-Member country users in particular might feel by ensuring they remain connected with a responsive and helpful community, and it enables them to take advantage of the lessons each has learned in their SNOMED CT implementation journey and best practices. Do you have any advice for any Spanish-speaking countries that might be considering becoming a Member but haven’t yet? SR : Yes! Contact me ( sro@snomed.org ) if you have any questions. We know there is so much to learn about, including licensing and Member fees, where to start, how to include SNOMED CT in your e-health roadmap or even what an NRC is. We can just have a conversation – it doesn’t mean you have to join; it just means we’re starting to talk. It also means that whenever I have Spanish-language events, I can let you know and keep you in the loop of what’s going on in the community. Visit us for more information on becoming a SNOMED International Member. Look for regular updates from SNOMED International on our products, services and many resources as we continue to expand and improve SNOMED CT and enable its use worldwide. Have a comment about this post? We’d love to hear from you. Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

SNOMED International welcomes Hungary to a growing and global community of practice Back 5 Sept 2024 Back SNOMED International is pleased to announce that Hungary has become a SNOMED International Member. Hungary will join a community of 49 Members globally. It is the fifth following the announcement of EU funding for Member states wishing to adopt SNOMED CT. SNOMED CT is a comprehensive, multilingual healthcare terminology created for use by healthcare professionals to capture the care of individuals in an electronic health record and facilitate sharing, decision support and analytics, to support safe and effective health information exchange. Hungary, a landlocked eastern European country of almost 10 million citizens, is perhaps best known for its rich cultural contributions, particularly in classical music. Its healthcare system is publicly funded and offers universal coverage to its citizens. While local county hospitals plan and manage inpatient care at the county level, under the supervision of National Directorate-General for Hospitals , the country administers its healthcare financing system through the National Institute of Health Insurance Fund Management - Nemzeti Egészségbiztosítási Alapkezelő (NEAK). Since launching an electronic patient record in 2017, Hungary’s efforts to further digitize the healthcare system were spurred in part – as in many countries – by the COVID-19 pandemic . In April 2023, Dr Péter Takács, Hungary’s State Secretary for Health, made strengthening the country’s health resources, infrastructure and delivery, harnessing technology and innovation to better serve its population, and nurturing its health and care workforce its main priorities. Other notable activities supporting Hungary’s digital health advancement include a recent study where Hungarian researchers mapped more than 6,000 in-patient and outpatient procedure codes to SNOMED CT, as part of the European Health Data Evidence Network (EHDEN) project. The EHDEN project’s goals are to reduce the time needed to provide answers in real world health research by developing the required infrastructure in a federated network at scale across Europe, collaboration on research methodologies, and education in an open science collaboration. Hungary is also active in cross-border research and data-sharing initiatives, according to a country profile gathered as part of Towards European Health Data Space (TEHDAS) . TEHDAS, whose purpose is to help Member States and the Commission to develop concepts and guidelines for the governing, usage and sharing of health data for secondary purposes, is cited as a concrete tool to develop the European Health Data Space and access to health data for secondary uses such as research, innovation and policy-making. Also noted in the profile is Hungary’s strategic investments in data-driven tools and artificial intelligence, as well as innovative pilot projects building the technical infrastructure for federated analysis. Country objectives also include development of a separate infrastructure for the secondary use of health data. SNOMED International CEO Don Sweete concurs with the benefits that SNOMED CT can contribute to Hungary’s digital health infrastructure, adding that Hungary’s membership strengthens our European Members’ efforts to collaborate and share implementation lessons learned. “SNOMED CT's global clinical terminology can support Hungary in achieving its digital health goals and its ambitions to develop a data-driven health system," he said. To learn more about SNOMED International and SNOMED CT, visit snomed.org . Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

SNOMED CT helps Cantebury District Health Board realize its data driven vision Back 23 Nov 2020 Back SNOMED International has released a series of videos that demonstrate the value that a healthcare system is deriving from implementing and using SNOMED CT, the world’s most comprehensive clinical terminology. The first chapter of the SNOMED CT Value Series, which focuses on New Zealand’s Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB), highlights the advances the organization has made in realizing its vision of a connected, integrated system that supports the country’s Healthy Ageing strategy and enables it to better serve its population. Acting Executive Director Planning, Funding and Decision Support, Ralph La Salle offers that “an integrated health system is essential for the health outcomes of the Canterbury population and quality data with thorough analysis leads to shared clinical insights and new ways of working collectively to optimise this integration.” Carolyn Gullery, who at the time of filming was the Executive Director, Planning, Funding and Decision Support for the CDHB, said New Zealand’s commitment to becoming a SNOMED International Member in 2007 was the beginning of a positive change for a healthcare system that was, like so many others across the globe, under extreme financial and performance-related pressure. She explains that in 2007, while its primary care system was thriving, its hospital system was struggling. Canterbury needed a better picture of its current situation and a way to predict the future needs of its 578,000 residents. Harnessing the power of data analytics Key to that goal, she noted, was the ability to use data and analytics to understand why people were ending up in the health system, who they were and how to intervene more effectively to reduce the demand on the system and provide better care for patients. By using SNOMED CT as part of its core infrastructure, and its Healthcare Analytics Solution (HCAS), a software tool that applies natural language processing to the unstructured text-based data in a clinical record, the health boards were able to code their existing data to SNOMED CT and then demonstrate to clinicians the power of using those codes to analyze that data. It is estimated that approximately 80 percent of health data is unstructured, and can represent text, photos, X-rays, voice/video recordings, slides and emails, among other types of health data. By building a series of systems that act as an integrated health platform, CDHB managed to use the same number of beds in 2019 as it did in 2007 for a population that over 12 years had grown by 80,000. Canterbury representatives also observed a 30 percent lower emergency department use and a 30 percent lower acute medical admission rate than the national average, meaning New Zealanders are less likely to end up in the hospital in Canterbury than in any other part of the country. Reducing manual labor for clinicians According to Dr. Nigel Gilchrist, a Canterbury physician, the organization had also struggled to identify vertebral spine fractures and identify patients who may not have received care for those fractures. By using SNOMED CT to search 13,000 X-ray reports as part of a pilot project involving West Coast DHB patients, the organization found that one-third of relevant patients had been treated, another third had not, and the remaining third had been misclassified. “We now identify over 200 new vertebral fractures every month,” he explained. “SNOMED CT has enabled us to identify specific case mixes that would otherwise take someone a long time to do manually.” In fact, the organization saved more than a year of a clinician’s time. Interoperability across platforms Another benefit of using SNOMED CT is its interoperability across the healthcare district’s best-of-breed applications. “We need to be sure we’re speaking the same language when we use data, and if we move it around, it’s got to mean the same thing in one place as in another,” said Dr. Saxon Connor, a Canterbury physician. Other Canterbury clinicians say they are most excited by SNOMED CT’s ability to help two different clinical tools – an electronic medical record system and a pathways tool – talk to each other via a SNOMED CT code linked to diagnoses, and by the ability to search for pathways and find hierarchies. “In the past, we had to go through our pathways manually and put keywords on them so people could find them, and with SNOMED we get all those synonyms for free,” said Kieran Holland, Clinical Lead for New Zealand’s HealthPathways Programme , an online clinical guidance tool. “It has improved the user search experience.” SNOMED CT: a piece of the digital health ecosystem as CDHB realizes multiple benefits 30 percent lower emergency department use than the national average 30 percent lower acute medical admission rate than the national average Held 2019 bed use to same numbers as in 2007 while serving a population that had grown by 80,000 Identified vertebral fracture patients who had not received care or whose cases had been misclassified Saved a year of clinician time by automating previously manual processes Interoperable across best-of-breed system Ability to link clinical tools via a SNOMED code Ability to search for pathways and hierarchies and improved user search experience There is more energy than ever in rolling out SNOMED CT as a key clinical information standard for an equitable New Zealand health and disability system, one that is data-driven and digitally enabled and SNOMED International’s CEO, Don Sweete, recognizes the dedication of New Zealand’s implementation efforts. “Canterbury is a great example of the breadth of maturity that SNOMED CT offers from data coding, data analysis, and ultimately the ability to apply artificial intelligence to already structured SNOMED CT data. It’s an end to end example of the benefit of SNOMED CT.” New Zealand’s focus over the next few years is on primary and community care, where users are migrating their systems from Read Codes to SNOMED CT as they introduce new models of care and supporting software. Watch the Value Series to learn more about SNOMED CT and New Zealand, a founding SNOMED International Member represented by the Ministry of Health Manatū Hauora. Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

BLOG: Jamaica's First SNOMED CT edition released Back 26 Sept 2024 Back By Dr. Taleya Girvan, Clinical Informatics Analyst at the Ministry of Health & Wellness, Jamaica, and Dr Keisha Barwise, Digital Health Standards and Health Informatics Consultant, Ministry of Health & Wellness, Jamaica, SNOMED International Member Forum representatives and members of the National Release Centre for Jamaica. Jamaica first joined SNOMED International in April 2023 after having an Affiliate License for almost a year. The Affiliate License afforded us access to learning resources, and allowed us to experiment with how to use SNOMED CT. During this time, we successfully created a proof of concept Health Information Exchange, using SNOMED CT as the clinical language to normalize data from two health databases and plan for the vocabulary that would be used in the upcoming EHR pilot. In April 2023, after completing the procurement of our national Electronic Health Record (EHR) system pilot, we became a full SNOMED International Member — making us the first Caribbean Member country. Jamaica is represented in SNOMED International by the Information Systems for Health Branch of the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW) which serves as the hub of all things SNOMED CT in the Ministry. Since officially becoming a Member, we have established the National Release Centre (NRC) and we are in the process of establishing standards and guidelines for national access and distribution of SNOMED CT (and other terminologies). We have continued to attend SNOMED International Business Meetings and Expos (virtually and in person in Atlanta in 2023), a cadre of our staff have completed the SNOMED CT Foundation course, and some are currently pursuing the Implementation Course. We have also launched sensitization efforts to introduce SNOMED CT to healthcare providers across Jamaica, including at the National Health Research Conference, the Caribbean Connect Conference and MOHW Digital Health Standards Workshop. Being a SNOMED International Member brings a wealth of opportunities, including access to comprehensive training programs, the SNOMED International Implementation Team and innovative tools such as Snap2SNOMED , the RefSet and Translation Service, and Simplex. These tools not only allow us to incorporate local colloquial terms into our EHR, ensuring our health system reflects our unique language and culture, but they have also enabled us to create mappings from SNOMED CT to proprietary Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), such as ROCHE & Senaite LIMS for lab code integration. Additionally, we've partially mapped SNOMED CT to the International Classification of Procedures in Medicine (ICPM), facilitating the seamless integration of surgical procedures into the EHR and other electronic applications developed by the Ministry. So, what exactly is SNOMED CT? SNOMED CT is the “most comprehensive, multilingual clinical healthcare terminology in the world. It is a resource with comprehensive, scientifically validated clinical content. The clinical terminology has unmatched depth, enabling clinicians to record data with consistency and enhanced accuracy. SNOMED CT supports the development of comprehensive high-quality clinical content in electronic health records, and provides a standardized way to represent clinical phrases captured by the clinician and enables automatic interpretation of these.” SNOMED CT creates a common language for clinical information, and ensures consistent and standardized data, benefiting patients, healthcare providers, researchers and data scientists. Imagine a patient being admitted to various hospitals and diagnosed with the same disorder, but worded differently – for example, at Hospital A, the patient is diagnosed with Intervertebral Disc Prolapse; at Hospital B, the diagnosis is Prolapsed Intervertebral Disc, and at their local Health Centre, the diagnosis is Slipped Disc: three diagnoses that have the same clinical meaning. When data is recorded using these diverse descriptions, data analytics would prove to be challenging. SNOMED CT allows new software to capture data consistently, regardless of the specific user or healthcare setting. This standardized data is then easier to analyze and use within the application. This is just one example of how SNOMED CT can be used to improve healthcare delivery and interoperability in the Jamaican healthcare system. Now, Jamaicans (and Caribbean people overall) – we are known for our vibrant culture – our music, food, fashion, and language. For example, “Hand middle” means the palm of the hand. “Running Belly” refers to “diarrhoea.” If a patient says the doctor “sound me,” it means that they used a stethoscope to listen to their chest. With these unique expressions in mind and an awareness of Jamaicans living across the diaspora, we embarked on a journey to incorporate OUR colloquial language into SNOMED CT – to add synonyms to existing medical concepts, as well as to create new concepts relevant to our healthcare setting. Under the patient and brilliant tutelage of Kai Kewley, Alejandro Lopez Osornio and Anne Randorff Højen from SNOMED International’s Implementation team, we learned how to use the RefSet and Translation tool, as well as the Simplex tool. Every two weeks, we would faithfully meet first thing on a Monday morning (afternoon for our tutors) to learn, brainstorm and troubleshoot. We were only too excited to use these tools! We hit the ground running. We had already curated a list of Jamaican terms used to describe medical concepts with input from doctors across the island, and we mapped them to SNOMED CT. We also created new concepts in Simplex to represent codes from our local laboratory systems that had no SNOMED CT equivalent. We also created concepts for locally relevant medical terms; for example, “ex-marijauna smoker.” After a few minor hiccups which were expertly resolved by the SNOMED International team, we got the exciting news in early July 2024; the first release of the SNOMED CT Jamaican Edition was on the horizon! Also, once successfully released, we could be the first country to release an edition using Simplex. As Jamaicans would say, “glad bag buss,” which means we could hardly contain our excitement. On the morning of July 25, 2024, we heard the words “Congratulations on the release of the first SNOMED CT Jamaican Edition.” A month later, in August 2024, the Jamaican Edition of SNOMED CT was made public in the SNOMED browser. We. Did. It. This is a huge accomplishment for the Jamaican National Release Centre and for the Ministry of Health and Wellness. What’s Next Now that we have the RF2 files for the SNOMED CT Jamaican Edition, it is possible to integrate these into various software programs including our EHR and other data collection platforms to standardize clinical documentation across the country. We will continue to create new medical concepts as needed and relevant to our healthcare setting. We are also excited to share our journey and experiences with SNOMED CT and encourage other countries especially in the Caribbean to consider SNOMED CT in the region’s Digital Health transformation. In the meanwhile, the Jamaican NRC will continue to upskill and strengthen our team so we can continue to enhance the healthcare system for Jamaica and by extension, our region. We would like to extend our gratitude to the SNOMED International, especially Suzy Roy, Kai Kewley and Alejandro Lopez Osornio, for their dedication, encouragement, patience, and genius minds. In Jamaica we say “Big up yuhself! Nuff Respec’ ” We are eager to witness the transformative and exciting changes that SNOMED CT will bring to our nation's digital health sector. Look out, world, the Jamaican ladies have taken a seat at the Digital Health table. For more information on Jamaica’s implementation, contact: The Jamaica National Release Centre at ntrc@moh.gov.jm , Dr. Taleya Girvan , taleya.girvan@moh.gov.jm , Dr. Keisha Barwise keisha.barwise@moh.gov.jm Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

The healthcare landscape is increasingly witnessing the transformative potential of generative artificial intelligence (AI) across various applications, including the automation of clinical documentation and the enhancement of patient communication. Recent advances in large language model (LLM) architectures and transformer based sequence forecasting have opened new perspectives for longitudinal clinical decision support (CDS). However, a significant impediment to achieving equitable and effective healthcare delivery, particularly within the realm of AI applications, lies in the inherent linguistic diversity of global populations. This diversity encompasses not only the multitude of languages spoken worldwide but also the variations within those languages, including dialects and culturally specific expressions (i.e. practice). Generative AI models, often trained predominantly on English language data, frequently encounter difficulties in accurately processing and understanding different languages and their nuances. This limitation can lead to inaccurate translations, misinterpretations of critical medical information, and ultimately, the exacerbation of existing health disparities among different linguistic communities. This project explore the features and capabilities of SNOMED CT in the context of using LLMs and elucidate how they can effectively address the challenges posed by linguistic diversity in the application of generative AI within clinical practice, ultimately fostering more inclusive and accurate healthcare solutions. The presentation will demonstrate how the Foresight Timeline generation tool [i] using synthetic patient data based on various instances of the SNOMED Basic Synthetic Patient Data Generator (BSPG)[ii] performs with various AI models and languages (editions of SNOMED CT). [i] Foresight: https://foresight.sites.er.kcl.ac.uk/ [ii] BSPG: https://github.com/IHTSDO/health-data-analytics/blob/ui-prototyping/generator/README.md#basic-synthetic-patient-data-generator Back View Map Sorano.net SNOMED CT: Bridging language differences between training and querying AI models for healthcare Read More Country / Region EMEA Tags Artificial intelligence, Clinical Practice, Data analytics, Global/International, Implementation, Tooling The healthcare landscape is increasingly witnessing the transformative potential of generative artificial intelligence (AI) across various applications, including the automation of clinical documentation and the enhancement of patient communication. Recent advances in large language model (LLM) architectures and transformer based sequence forecasting have opened new perspectives for longitudinal clinical decision support (CDS). However, a significant impediment to achieving equitable and effective healthcare delivery, particularly within the realm of AI applications, lies in the inherent linguistic diversity of global populations. This diversity encompasses not only the multitude of languages spoken worldwide but also the variations within those languages, including dialects and culturally specific expressions (i.e. practice). Generative AI models, often trained predominantly on English language data, frequently encounter difficulties in accurately processing and understanding different languages and their nuances. This limitation can lead to inaccurate translations, misinterpretations of critical medical information, and ultimately, the exacerbation of existing health disparities among different linguistic communities. This project explore the features and capabilities of SNOMED CT in the context of using LLMs and elucidate how they can effectively address the challenges posed by linguistic diversity in the application of generative AI within clinical practice, ultimately fostering more inclusive and accurate healthcare solutions. The presentation will demonstrate how the Foresight Timeline generation tool [i] using synthetic patient data based on various instances of the SNOMED Basic Synthetic Patient Data Generator (BSPG)[ii] performs with various AI models and languages (editions of SNOMED CT). [i] Foresight: https://foresight.sites.er.kcl.ac.uk/ [ii] BSPG: https://github.com/IHTSDO/health-data-analytics/blob/ui-prototyping/generator/README.md#basic-synthetic-patient-data-generator Description This project aims to provide a framework to asses how SNOMED CT can contribute to semantic interoperability with generative AI. Overcoming the challenges posed by linguistic diversity in the application of generative AI within clinical practice (precision). Scope SNOMED CT (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine – Clinical Terms) emerges as a comprehensive, standardized, and inherently multilingual clinical terminology system. Recognized as the most comprehensive clinical vocabulary available in any language, SNOMED CT holds substantial promise in acting as a bridge by providing a common semantic framework that transcends the barriers of different languages models. How SNOMED CT will be used To generate synthetic data for training or testing of the NLP pipeline (generative models). Why SNOMED CT will be used Contact More information Learn more Get SNOMED CT Information about our license and fee structure Learn more Learn more Explore the wide range of resources available to our community of practice Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

2024 Annual Report highlights the year's achievements and activities Back 13 May 2025 Back The SNOMED International 2024 Annual Report is now available. The document, which chronicles the organization’s key activities over the past year, wraps up the 2020-2025 strategy with a reflection on and an accounting of our goals for the five-year period and our successes meeting those objectives. The report outlines a number of first-time endeavours for the organization in 2024 and the benefits realized from those activities, such as formally joining the Bahmni Coalition , hosting an Entity Linking Challenge and delivery of a one-day SNOMED CT in Europe conference. A read through the 2024 report also reveals another increasingly important theme echoed over the past year – in particular, the need to better understand advanced technologies and how to harness them for the benefit of SNOMED CT users and implementers worldwide. As SNOMED International and its global community work to explore SNOMED CT as an input into Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models, it is clear the energy and enthusiasm fuelling these discussions is growing as implementers, clinicians, researchers and SNOMED CT users learn more about future possibilities. The 2024 Annual Report also provides a snapshot of the 2025-2030 Strategy , which was developed in 2024 in conjunction with our governance bodies. The new strategy, which seeks to build on the work of the past five years, includes a Technology Roadmap to ensure that the organization prioritizes initiatives focused on making SNOMED CT easier to adopt and implement, and an expanded approach to User Acceptance Testing. At the same time, the strategy also calls for a Content Roadmap based on Member priorities and balanced with ongoing content work. In addition to new and updated products and services, educational offerings, content changes and collaborations made over the year, the report provides insights into the many different ways the organization has engaged with its Members and other stakeholders. Some of the features we’re most proud of in this year’s report are the Member-focused articles that highlight their activities and successes in implementing and adopting SNOMED CT, including New Zealand discussing its use of a “working bee” to advance the use of the terminology, the piece on global cancer reporting agencies that discusses multi-agency efforts to use SNOMED CT to improve cancer care, and the article detailing our work with LOINC by Regenstrief to develop the LOINC Extension. “The 2024 annual report enables us to tell the story of our ecosystem of global stakeholders – their goals, and our work to better understand how we can support the drive for interoperability across the globe,” says SNOMED International CEO Don Sweete. We thank all our Members and the SNOMED International community for their commitment to enabling global interoperability and we look forward to sharing our 2025 activities next year. Visit the Results section of the Strategy, Objectives and Results page to read the report. Media Inquiries SNOMED International Kelly Kuru Email: comms@snomed.org Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

SNOMED International Joins COVID-19 Interoperability Alliance Back 22 May 2020 Back London, United Kingdom, May 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SNOMED International, the leader in global clinical terminology, announces today the organization’s participation in the COVID-19 Interoperability Alliance . The Alliance is an informatics focused environment supporting collaborative authoring of COVID-19 related interoperability data resources. Alongside Alliance partners Clinical Architecture, logica, MITRE, Regenstrief Institute, Apelon, and Care Evolution, SNOMED International joins an open collective where parties can create, evolve and share meaningful data supporting the current COVID-19 global pandemic. Each participating organization has contributed their respective clinical COVID-19 content, quality assured by a variety of skilled resources and subject matter experts globally. SNOMED International, specifically, has contributed COVID-19 - SNOMED CT Signs and Symptoms, COVID-19 - SNOMED CT Edition - Prerelease Terms from the Global Patient Set and the COVID-19 - SNOMED CT to ICD-10 Map, resources which can also be accessed here. The Alliance provides a hub for healthcare information to enable public and private organizations to quickly and easily identify, monitor, and measure data relevant to COVID-19 and has made these resources available through the following: Open access to downloadable data resources created by the Alliance Open access to an interactive content browser FHIR API access to published data assets (for development purposes only) A collaborative information management workshop for registered contributors Useful links relating to COVID-19 interoperability and analytics The type of data resources being created include clinical, demographic, and administrative value sets; Focused terminology subsets; FHIR profiles and attributes; and useful meta-data. Data produced by the Alliance will be made available to the public under a Creative Commons license which provides the right to share, use, and build upon the data provided. Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

Latvia advances digital health strategy by joining SNOMED International Back 10 Mar 2026 Back RIGA, LATVIA AND LONDON, UK – March 10, 2026 – SNOMED International welcomes the Republic of Latvia as its latest Member. Latvia, one of three Baltic states in northern Europe, has a population of 1.8 million. With an advanced economy, the country is a member of the European Union (EU) and a number of other European trade and security organizations. In 2023, the country launched a seven-year digital health strategy that defines the directions and tasks of the digital transformation of the health sector. With full Cabinet of Ministers’ approval in August 2023, the strategy targets a sweeping transformation of Latvia’s health ecosystem, leveraging EU Structural Funds and national investment to drive change. Additionally, Latvia established a separate digital health data authority – SIA “Latvijas Digitālās veselības centrs”– to ensure an open and integrated digital health ecosystem. Key goals of the strategy include digital transformation of the healthcare sector, focusing on interoperability, data availability for patients and professionals, and increased use of digital services such as telehealth and AI-powered tools. Other goals include enhancing health data management, boosting digital literacy among healthcare workers, and employing EU structural funds for implementation. Minister of Health of Latvia Mr. Hosam Abu Meri sees SNOMED CT implementation in Latvia as an essential step for building a resilient and sustainable digital health ecosystem. “When clinicians document care using standardized clinical terminology, we reduce ambiguity, improve continuity of care, and enhance patient safety,” he said. “A shared language ensures that what is recorded in one hospital is understood in another, internationally as well. It also ensures that patients receive consistent and safe care wherever they are, as their medical information can be accurately understood and used across institutions and borders. Therefore, I am looking forward to the practical SNOMED CT implementation that is on the way for Latvia.” Adopting and implementing the clinical terminology SNOMED CT will help the country achieve those goals. SNOMED CT, the most comprehensive, multilingual clinical healthcare terminology in the world, is a resource with comprehensive, scientifically validated clinical content that enables consistent representation of clinical content in electronic health records and is mapped to other international standards. It is used in more than 80 countries. When integrated into an electronic health record system, SNOMED CT, which incorporates more than 370,000 concepts, presents clinical information in ways that enable meaning-based retrieval, facilitating consistent reporting and analysis. SNOMED International CEO Don Sweete hails Latvia’s decision to join SNOMED International as a pivotal step toward attaining the country’s digital health strategy goals and to continuing to improve key health indices such as lifespan, disease prevalence and health system performance, to name a few. It also opens the door to the experience and successes other European countries have enabled via the adoption of SNOMED CT, he notes. “European SNOMED International Members are enthusiastic about sharing their knowledge and experience related to the adoption of SNOMED CT, and I know that Latvia can benefit from – and contribute to – that knowledge bank,” he says. Learn more about SNOMED CT Learn more about SNOMED International Learn more about the Digital Health Centre of Latvia (Sākumlapa - SIA "Latvijas Digitālās veselības centrs) Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

SNOMED CT is playing an increasingly vital role in bridging national drug dictionaries with electronic clinical records. Several countries are aligning their drug data with the SNOMED International Clinical Drug Model, while recent enhancements to SNOMED CT—particularly in its capacity to represent non-defining associations and metadata annotations—are expanding its use as a versioned, standardized content distribution suitable for consumption by terminology servers. However, each country approaches this alignment from different starting points, with varying source formats, data models, and local priorities. In this paper, we identify recurring patterns and the challenges they present, and propose strategic approaches that combine mapping techniques, automated transformations, expert curation and revision processes, and concept model extensions to enhance representation, ensure local relevance, and maintain transparency of source data. Back View Map termMed Implementing national clinical drug extensions across different countries and diverse use cases: comparing challenges and strategies to overcome them Read More Country / Region Americas Tags Collaboration, Implementation, Mapping, Tooling SNOMED CT is playing an increasingly vital role in bridging national drug dictionaries with electronic clinical records. Several countries are aligning their drug data with the SNOMED International Clinical Drug Model, while recent enhancements to SNOMED CT—particularly in its capacity to represent non-defining associations and metadata annotations—are expanding its use as a versioned, standardized content distribution suitable for consumption by terminology servers. However, each country approaches this alignment from different starting points, with varying source formats, data models, and local priorities. In this paper, we identify recurring patterns and the challenges they present, and propose strategic approaches that combine mapping techniques, automated transformations, expert curation and revision processes, and concept model extensions to enhance representation, ensure local relevance, and maintain transparency of source data. Description This paper examines the challenges encountered during the implementation of three national drug extensions, each originating from distinct data sources. We present the strategies employed to align these extensions with the SNOMED International model, which vary depending on the characteristics and constraints of each source. These strategies range from fully automated transformations—applied when source alignment gaps are minimal or when maximizing source transparency is critical—to more complex approaches involving manual curation at the individual product level. In some cases, the process also required the creation of use case-specific classes to support key functions such as prescription, dispensing, and data analytics. Scope SNOMED CT was selected as it is emerging as the leading reference model for integrating locally marketed medicinal products with clinical data in electronic health records (EHRs). It is also evolving into a comprehensive, standards-based distribution format that defines the semantics of drug classes and incorporates relevant metadata to support their use across diverse clinical and analytical settings. How SNOMED CT will be used SNOMED CT serves as a bridge between medicinal product data stored in national drug dictionaries and clinical information recorded in patient health records. It enables a wide range of use cases, including clinical decision support, accurate data recording, and electronic prescribing. However, to address specific local requirements, the international drug model often requires adaptation—through localization, extension, and harmonization—ultimately evolving into a comprehensive content model tailored to each implementation context. Why SNOMED CT will be used Contact More information Learn more Get SNOMED CT Information about our license and fee structure Learn more Learn more Explore the wide range of resources available to our community of practice Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

Practical Guide to Reference Sets - Now Available Back 31 Mar 2017 Back SNOMED International is pleased to announce the release of the Practical Guide to Reference Sets. SNOMED CT reference sets enable the maintenance and distribution of a wide range of SNOMED CT derivatives, including subsets, maps, navigation hierarchies and ordered lists. They also provide a standard extensibility mechanism to support effective localization and customization of SNOMED CT. The Practical Guide to Reference Sets provides an introduction to SNOMED CT reference sets, and explains why, how and where they are used. It also explores the different types of reference sets, and a range of practical approaches to each stage of the reference set life cycle. The Practical Guide to Reference Sets can be found at http://snomed.org/refsetpg . Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe