SNOMED CT example EMR-EHR requirements available for Member and vendor use Back 29 Jul 2019 Back In 2018, SNOMED International’s Member Forum, a group made up of participating representatives from the organization's 39 Member countries, identified a need for a common set of foundational SNOMED CT requirements that could be included in tender documents when procuring eHealth solutions. In developing this collection of requirements, it became clear that there were a number of benefits to multiple stakeholders that would result from this initiative: A common starting point that allows for greater collaboration among Members; A common foundation to lay the groundwork for future collaboration and interoperability initiatives among countries; Requirements “categories” that can easily address jurisdiction-specific requirements; and, Benefits to vendors that are interested in bidding on these opportunities, by providing them with a list of baseline requirements that they can include in their solutions. SNOMED International is committed to easing the path for Members and vendors to participate in the ongoing growth of SNOMED CT globally. Through initiatives such as this, Members can begin building requirements for solutions that not only fit their clinical use cases, but also provide the foundation for future collaboration across borders. The SNOMED CT Example EMR & EHR Requirements Guide can be accessed from SNOMED International’s Document Library among other useful guides and associated resources.For more information, please contact info@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

International Council of Nurses and SNOMED sign ground-breaking agreement to secure a bright future Back 11 Aug 2020 Back August 11, 2020, London, United Kingdom and Geneva, Switzerland -- SNOMED International and the International Council of Nurses (ICN) have joined forces in an agreement that will pave the way for the International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP) to be managed, produced, released and distributed by SNOMED International. This agreement, which is the culmination of years of collaboration between the two organisations, will see ICN retain ownership of ICNP and continue to define its content so that it meets the needs of the global nursing profession. The agreement aligns with increasing global health digitisation, the widespread use of SNOMED CT-enabled electronic health records (EHR), and the documentation of ICNP-specific content by nurses around the world. A significant benefit of this agreement removes the need for countries that currently use both ICNP and SNOMED CT to engage in mapping activities between the two systems, which is an effort that was previously required. The ICNP, which has been in use for more than 30 years, is a standardised terminology used to represent nursing diagnoses, interventions and outcomes. It provides a dictionary of terms and expressive relationships that nurses can use to describe and report their practice in a systematic way. The resulting information is used reliably to support care and effective decision-making, and inform nursing education, research and health policy. ICN will continue to define ICNP’s editorial policy and advise of changes to ICNP through SNOMED CT’s Content Request Service. ICN President Annette Kennedy said, “Increasing demand for reliable data means ICNP is an essential tool for modern day nursing. We know that the only things that count are the things that are counted, so the use of this tool is vital to ensure that nursing work and its impact are adequately represented in the data sets that are used to control healthcare systems around the world. Nursing needs to be visible to be viable, and the collaboration between ICN and SNOMED will shine a light on nursing care and ensure that its benefits are recorded, recognised and rewarded.” SNOMED CT is the world’s largest clinical terminology, representing a collection of more than 350,000+ clinical concepts and built upon ontological principles, particularly useful when applied in research and planning capacities. SNOMED CT’s primary purpose is to support all healthcare professionals in their recording and sharing of detailed patient information within EHRs and across healthcare communities globally. ICN’s nursing terminology, which is defined by the nursing profession, will now be coupled with SNOMED International’s global clinical validation processes, licensing platform, quality assurance approach and established distribution tools. SNOMED International CEO, Don Sweete said, “ICN continues to retain ownership of the ICNP product. What this agreement enables is ease of use through new management, production and delivery mechanisms to reach nursing users globally through SNOMED International.” With this five-year agreement, the use of added ICNP terminology will be pursued by SNOMED International Member countries, including but not limited to Canada, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden. SNOMED International and ICN are currently engaged in planning the update of content to ICNP 2019, and preparing the first release of the ICNP reference set, on behalf of ICN, by September 2021, initially with an agreed two-year release cycle. Visit the International Council of Nurses to learn more about ICN and ICNP. Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

Building the Business Case for SNOMED CT Back 3 Nov 2014 Back IHTSDO announces the release of a new study to help current and prospective Members of IHTSDO build the business case for national SNOMED CT adoption and IHTSDO membership. Membership and national use of SNOMED CT have a number of advantages in terms of reduced costs and improved care, such as: Cost savings in terminology development, licensing fees, and transcription costs of mapping to ICD or other coding systems; Reductions in inappropriate or duplicate testing Reduction in adverse drug events Improved management of key disease groups, such as cardiac care and oncology Encoded health information and decision support tools enable these benefits. Consistently codified information enables comparison, exchange and reuse throughout the healthcare system. Therefore, an open SNOMED CT-based ecosystem presents an opportunity for exponential increases in benefits. To learn more about these benefits and about how to build the business case for sustaining and expanding investments in SNOMED CT to drive your health system improvements, please see the executive summary presentation and the complete report . Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

Expression Constraint Language - Specification & Guide now available Back 21 Sept 2015 Back IHTSDO is pleased to announce the publication of the "SNOMED CT Expression Constraint Language Specification and Guide". A SNOMED CT Expression Constraint is a computable rule that defines a bounded set of clinical meanings. The associated Expression Constraint Language enables intensional definitions to be created for use cases such as terminology binding, intensional reference set definitions, SNOMED CT content queries, and SNOMED CT concept model specifications. The "SNOMED CT Expression Constraint Language Specification and Guide" defines and describes a formal language for representing SNOMED CT Expression Constraints. It includes a logical model of the language, two syntaxes, a set of example expression constraints and a summary of implementation considerations. This document is now available from the SNOMED CT Document Library. Alternatively, you can access it directly via the following link: http://snomed.org/expressionconstraint . Additional supporting materials can be found on the IHTSDO's 'SNOMED CT Languages' Github repository: https://github.com/IHTSDO/SNOMEDCT-Languages . Example ABNF parsers for each of the SNOMED CT Computable Languages can be found at http://apg.ihtsdotools.org . Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia joins the SNOMED CT Community Back 24 Jun 2019 Back London, United Kingdom, June 24, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SNOMED International and the National Health Information Center (NHIC) are pleased to announce that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has recently joined as the organization’s thirty-ninth Member. The NHIC has been established pursuant to the Saudi royal decree no. 333 to be linked with health services and connected to an electronic network of health information with the Ministry of Health, medical services in the military bodies, university hospitals and other relevant government agencies. It is the vision of the Center to serve as the core axis of smart, safe and reliable digital information and healthcare services in the Kingdom and in doing so will provide, organize and exchange health information electronically among bodies of health sectors and other relevant bodies. Through Membership in SNOMED International, the Kingdom and NHIC have committed support for structured terminology to address national tasks to standardize clinical terminology, names and definitions used in all health information systems and methods of collection. With the Kingdom’s strategic aims to support transformation of electronic healthcare services along with facilitating the circulation of health data and information electronically safely, SNOMED CT is a valuable tool to be used throughout the country. SNOMED CT is the world’s most comprehensive health terminology. Founded in 2007 by nine charter nations, SNOMED International is a not-for-profit, member-owned and driven international organization. The addition of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has grown the organization’s Membership to thirty-nine countries and territories across five continents and enables management and use SNOMED CT and other related products. Membership also extends to participation on the General Assembly, a critical governance role which includes responsibility for approval of the organization's budget and strategy. “The Kingdom’s Membership in SNOMED International will extend the footprint of clinical terminology in place in hospital and health information systems within Saudi Arabia. In line with the launch of the Kingdom’s healthcare transformation strategy and Saudi’s 2030 Vision, investment in digital health infrastructure such as clinical terminology standards will contribute to accomplishing these goals” says SNOMED International CEO, Don Sweete. “SNOMED CT is internationally recognized as a powerful terminology for healthcare. Through our Membership in SNOMED International we are certain we can increase patient safety in the kingdom by eliminating errors occurring due to misinterpreted data, while fulfilling our National E- Health Strategy aligned with the Kingdom’s healthcare transformation strategy and 2030 Vision” says the NHIC’s General Director. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia becomes the third country within the Middle East region to join SNOMED International, further extending the SNOMED CT use, implementation experience and collaboration opportunities for the area. To learn more about the National Health Information Center visit https://nhic.gov.sa/en/Pages/default.aspx . Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

Broadening international patient care and interoperability with the GPS Back 30 Sept 2020 Back Since the date of issue, this information is now out of date and has been archived. It has been made available for reference. First launched in September 2019, SNOMED International has issued its second release of the Global Patient Set (GPS) to support health system interoperability. A slice of SNOMED CT, the GPS is a managed collection of existing reference sets, available to any user at no cost. It's positioned to support cross border interoperability and enhanced digital maturity as users move towards decision support and full analytics capabilities in their respective strategies. Met with great success with its inaugural release, the 2019 year saw over 500 downloads of the GPS from a variety of interested parties worldwide. The GPS enables easier specification of EHR requirements, e.g. a patient summary, and results in improved interoperability. While the GPS offers non-Members considering SNOMED CT use a mechanism for greater insight into the product and its value without requiring initial investment, the GPS as a whole is not a clinically curated list; it excludes SNOMED CT’s inherent relationships and hierarchies; fundamental to the nature of an ontology and its ability to enable clinical data analytics, decision support, and power artificial intelligence, etc. September 2020 Release The GPS offers clinical content across dentistry, renal, family & general practice and nursing areas, and includes IHE, DICOM and HL7 International Patient Summary (IPS) domains and activities. Of particular relevance, the IPS is a minimal and non-exhaustive patient summary dataset containing essential healthcare information for use in the unscheduled, cross-border care scenario, as well as for local, regional and other care scenarios. SNOMED CT content supports the HL7 IPS and also the terminology to underpin the CEN European Standard for the Patient Summary. Through the GPS, these SNOMED CT terms are available free for use in HL7 CDA R2 implementations and FHIR IPS Implementations Guides worldwide, supporting the joint goal of cross border sharing and reuse of information. In terms of newly added content, in March 2020, the World Health Organization formally characterized Coronavirus, COVID-19, as a global pandemic and health systems worldwide are continuing their efforts to manage the outbreak. COVID-19 content included in the January 2020 release was subsequently updated in March 2020 with SNOMED International issuing an elective release falling outside of its customary release cycle. January and updated March COVID-19 content has been added to the scope of the September 2020 GPS release to support the recording and sharing of healthcare data during the COVID-19 pandemic. Existing and relevant SNOMED CT content has also been added to the GPS and can be referenced at http://snomed.org/covid-19 . SNOMED International is also committed to supporting the reduction of health inequity through developing and managing social determinants of health content within SNOMED CT’s clinical terminology. To maximize accessibility of this content, SNOMED International has also included a large amount of social determinants of health content within the September 2020 GPS release. Accessing & Consuming the GPS Offered under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License, the GPS is available to any interested party at no cost, simply by visiting SNOMED International’s GPS information page and registering your use. In terms of consuming the GPS, from the 2020 Release onwards, SNOMED International will also be publishing an RF2 formatted package containing the GPS refset content. This Refset will follow normal RF2 conventions, and will therefore retain a full historical audit trail of all changes to the GPS refset from that point onwards. Additional Resources Additional resources including use cases, and implementation guidance are also located on the GPS information page . Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

New license and SNOMED CT distribution system launched Back 13 Jan 2015 Back MLDS is replacing SALSA (the SNOMED CT Affiliate Licence Service Application) and offers improved navigation and more features. It will facilitate licensing for SNOMED CT use in non-Member countries and a limited number of Member countries. As part of the process of registering on the new licensing system, users will be asked to accept the new License Agreement that was approved by the IHTSDO General Assembly in 2014 and has legal effect from January 2015. The new license will also be phased in all Member countries in the coming months. Confused? Don't be. All SNOMED CT licensees will be contacted if they need to do anything. MLDS has been designed to guide users much more effectively than ever before. We welcome your feedback into this new and improved system. Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

Syadem and SNOMED International announce release of the Unified Nomenclature of Vaccines Extension Back 8 May 2025 Back SNOMED International and Syadem are pleased to announce the release of the Unified Nomenclature of Vaccines ( NUVA ) Extension. France-based Syadem owns and manages NUVA, a terminology used to capture, interpret, and process records of administered vaccines. SNOMED CT is a comprehensive, multilingual healthcare terminology created for use by healthcare professionals. It enables the care of individuals to be captured in electronic health records, facilitating information sharing, decision support and analytics for safe and effective health information exchange. SYADEM participates in the European Vaccination beyond COVID (EUVABECO) project, which is co-funded by the European Commission under the eU4Health program . By mid 2026, EUVABECO will deliver implementation plans for innovative vaccination practices to EU Member States. The plans will support the operationalization of several tools including a portable European Vaccination Card (EVC). NUVA is the intended code system for documenting administered vaccines in the EVC. The release follows the April 2024 announcement of the formal collaboration between the two organizations, which was formed to facilitate the creation of comprehensive vaccination histories for individuals over time, regardless of the original vaccine source and data format. The partners also agreed to collaborate to integrate NUVA content as an extension in SNOMED International’s Community Content Area, define processes for ensuring content alignment, and, where relevant, include NUVA concepts in the SNOMED CT International Edition. The NUVA Extension includes all of the NUVA vaccine content, including branded products, valences and medicinal product role. It facilitates alignment with, and strengthens access to, vaccine content in a SNOMED CT format, supporting both clinical and regulatory requirements for vaccine information. “Team members from both organizations have made considerable progress in achieving the goals we agreed upon a year ago,” says SNOMED International CEO Don Sweete. “As we watch a growing measles crisis unfold in North America and bird flu continue to spread, we see that the risks to human health from vaccine-preventable illnesses have not diminished in that time, and in fact, continue to increase. Our work together helps ensure the world can respond more quickly and effectively to these ongoing challenges.” “Three years ago, we realized how helpful our NUVA terminology could be to the digital health community and made the decision to offer it as a global common good,” says SYADEM scientific director Jean-Louis Koeck. “SNOMED International immediately grasped the value of that idea and helped us in maturing this solution. Now, with this first release and the constitution of a supporting network of vaccine coding experts through the International Vaccine Codes Initiative (IVC), it becomes a reality.” International Summit on Vaccine Coding & Standards Conference The SNOMED International team participating in the NUVA collaboration work are attending the International Summit on Vaccine Coding & Standards Conference on May 9, 2025, in Bordeaux, France, where the release will be formally announced. Co-organized by the American Immunization Registry Association and Syadem, the event will focus on advancing global vaccine interoperability through the International Vaccine Codes Initiative (IVC) and NUVA. The teams will also provide technical information about the NUVA Extension and alignment with SNOMED CT, and discuss the importance and benefits of the collaboration between the two organizations. For more information about the conference, visit the conference website . View the NUVA extension here . Media Inquiries: SYADEM Timothée Bahuaud Email: tbahuaud@mesvaccins.net 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 significantly expands the scope of the Global Patient Set Back 11 Mar 2026 Back SNOMED International and its Members are pleased to announce the expansion of the Global Patient Set, building on the success of the first released Global Patient Set launched in 2019. Designed to meet the evolving needs of healthcare systems and users worldwide, the Global Patient Set (GPS) offers an open, and freely accessible collection of SNOMED CT terms that support the accurate, consistent exchange of essential patient information — regardless of geographic location or technical environment. The GPS reflects SNOMED International’s ongoing commitment to supporting global health interoperability, improving patient outcomes, and advancing equitable access to high-quality clinical terminologies. What’s New with the Global Patient Set? Broader Scope: The GPS will now include all content in the SNOMED CT International Edition, which significantly exceeds the currently scoped collection of concepts to better support core health data exchange, public health reporting, research, and more. GPS offers global access to all SNOMED CT unique identifiers, fully specified names (FSNs), preferred terms in international English, and active/inactive indicators — made available at no cost to users worldwide. *The GPS does not include SNOMED CT’s full semantic structure, including inherent relationships, hierarchies, and additional descriptions, nor access to any SNOMED CT derivatives, including reference sets, maps, extensions or translations. Open for All: The GPS continues to be openly available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License , ensuring it remains free for use worldwide, without barriers. Alignment with Global Initiatives: The GPS is designed to complement international efforts such as HL7 FHIR and other health data standards, including regional interoperability approaches such as EHDS. Practical, Actionable Terminology: The GPS provides the clinically validated terms needed to support the safe, reliable exchange of patient data across borders, health systems, and digital health platforms. Supporting Global Interoperability "Building on years of collaboration with the global health community, the GPS is a key tool to help countries, organizations, and digital health innovators exchange critical health information effectively — no matter where care is delivered," said Don Sweete, CEO of SNOMED International. Whether a country is establishing its national terminology strategy or an organization is developing health IT solutions, the GPS offers insight and a guiding and practical pathway to benefit from SNOMED CT’s rich, clinically proven content. The GPS is a practical, open-access resource for governments, health authorities, digital health innovators, and global health stakeholders to enable limited standardized health information exchange, with particular emphasis on improving interoperability, public health reporting, and equitable access to clinical terminology worldwide. With the GPS, SNOMED International is expanding access to foundational and standard clinical terms supporting interoperability in emerging and cross-border health systems. For Members and implementers of healthcare solutions, the value of the SNOMED CT International Edition and related products remains unmatched—full access to the ontology, tools, and governance that make SNOMED CT the global standard for semantic interoperability supporting advanced health data solutions. Access the Global Patient Set The Global Patient Set is available now and can be downloaded free of charge. For more information, including guidance and tools, visit the GPS website or contact gps@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 identifies the benefits of using SNOMED CT for its broad range of stakeholders Back 14 Jun 2021 Back Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to update the font, size and more. To change and reuse text themes, go to Site Styles. Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

AMA and IHTSDO Announce Collaborative Health Terminology Agreement Back 28 Oct 2016 Back Since the date of issue, this information is now out of date and has been archived. It has been made available for reference. The American Medical Association (AMA) and the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO) announced today a new collaborative agreement to coordinate on the design and development of their respective coding and terminology products. By working together, the organizations seek to address the health system’s emerging need for greater integration between proprietary codes sets in support of interoperability and health care data analytics. AMA’s Current Procedural Terminology (CPT®) is the most widely accepted medical nomenclature used to report medical procedures and services under public and private health insurance programs in the United States. IHTSDO’s SNOMED CT® is the global language of healthcare, an international standard that ensures semantically accurate clinical terminology for consistent use across health systems and services. The AMA and IHTSDO recognize the complementary nature of their code sets and the critical role they play in health care delivery and administration. By working in tandem, this new collaboration will produce valuable tools for physicians, hospitals, payers and others to organize vital health care data. Additionally, the AMA and IHTSDO will collaborate to promote broader adoption of their content products; share tools and expertise related to the development and maintenance of their respective standards; and improve current content to better support existing and emerging uses of health data. “We are excited about this new work,” said IHTSDO CEO Don Sweete. “This new agreement focuses on specific projects to develop products that will benefit from the granularity and sophisticated structure of SNOMED CT, and the broad utility and adoption of CPT.” "IHTSDO and the AMA view this collaboration as an important step toward increasing the coordination and integration of our terminology products to shape a better health care system,” said AMA CEO and Executive Vice President James L. Madara, M.D. “We intend to use this collaboration as a foundation to achieve our shared goals of increased responsiveness to market needs and greater innovation through improved interoperability among ours and related terminologies." Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe

Welsh case study demonstrates SNOMED CT's proven clinical benefits Back 9 Jun 2017 Back Within NHS Wales, an electronic patient record system has been developed since 2009 with a focus on a core generic clinical information model built using SNOMED CT. Mark Wardle, Consultant Neurologist, at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, and Andy Spencer, Chair of the Informatics for Quality Committee, have recently produced a case study of the implementation of SNOMED CT in an online clinical database in Wales. The case study outlines how SNOMED CT has proven clinical benefits, including supporting: Direct patient care by making information available immediately to staff at the point of care Clinical governance and service provision by making aggregated data immediately available in live reporting Clinical research with a focus on generic and disease-specific patient outcomes. Read the linked case study to learn more. Subscribe to SNOMED International news Stay up to date on SNOMED news, features, developments and newsletters by subscribing to our news service. Subscribe