Question

• What is SNOMED CT?
• How is SNOMED CT used and how does it work?
• How is SNOMED CT used in the veterinary setting?
• How is SNOMED CT used worldwide?

Answer 1

1. SNOMED CT is Systematised Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terminology .

SNOMED CT is a standard clinical terminology with specific support for multi-lingual translation. It is in use in more than fifty countries. SNOMED CT is owned, maintained and distributed by the International Health Terminology Standard Development Organisation (IHTSDO).

2. SNOMED CT Work by the following ways :-

SNOMED CT content is represented using three types of component:

•Concepts

•Descriptions

•Relationships

SNOMED CT concepts

represent clinical thoughts. Every concept has a unique numeric concept identifier. Within each hierarchy, concepts are organized from the general to the more detailed.

There are over 300,000 active concepts in SNOMED CT.

SNOMED CT descriptions

link appropriate human readable terms to concepts. A concept can have several associated descriptions, each representing a synonym that describes the same clinical concept. Each translation of SNOMED CT includes an additional set of descriptions, which link terms in another language to the same SNOMED CT concepts. Every description has a unique numeric description identifier.

SNOMED CT relationships

link concepts to other concepts whose meaning is related in some way. These relationships provide formal definitions and other properties of the concept. Every relationship has a unique numeric relationship identifier.

3. SNOMED CT is the commonly used coding system in the veterinary settings . It is used as an input system to code the diseases ,signa and symptoms , procedures etc provided to animals

4. It is used worldwide for the following purposes :- Controlled vocabulary - less chance of misunderstandings between clinicians

Consistent terminology across all care domains.

Precise recording of clinical information.

EPR reduces storage costs.

EPR can be accessed in many places at the same time.

EPR is quickly transferred.

EPR is legible as it is not dependant on hand-written notes.

More efficient search for patient records.

Point of care decision support.

Monitoring adverse reactions to treatment.

Automatic identification of patient risk factors.

Monitor response to treatment.