2009 Update

National Activities

As part of NEHTA’s commitment to continuous improvement in the provision of high quality products and services to the community, a review of Terminology Services was undertaken in 2009. Terminology Services has now become the National Clinical Terminology & Information Service and fully incorporates the Clinical Information Initiative. This review was intended to ensure that there is clarity around the purpose and function of the group, along with a focus on providing products and services that advance the National e-health agenda.

Implementation plans and other activities

The first release SNOMED CT-AU was released in December 2009. SNOMED CT-AU provides SNOMED CT with local variations and customizations of terms relevant to the Australian healthcare sector. SNOMED CT-AU is the local release of the SNOMED CT international resources along with Australian developed terminology and documentation for implementation in Australian IT systems. Whereas NEHTA has previously released separate terminology products as they were developed. SNOMED CT-AU allows the products to be released to license holders as a single product. Future releases of SNOMED CT-AU will continue to be released on a six monthly cycle. SNOMED CT-AU will be release in both RF1 and RF2 formats. Work is currently underway for the second national release of SNOMED CT-AU, which is scheduled for release in May 2010. This release will build on the previous national release with the intention to include more locally relevant reference sets.

Emergency Department Reference Set

A focus of activity has been the development of Emergency Department reference sets for ‘Diagnosis’ and ‘Presenting Problem’ with an intention to have these reference sets implemented nationally by June 2011. The reference sets will be made available in the May 2010 release. The first phase of this implementation activity is to target appropriate early adoption sites and associated vendors. Vendor consultation to date reflects the majority of ED clinical information systems in use nationally, assuring downstream benefits of SNOMED CT –AU integration over time.

General Practice Reference Set

Another domain specific reference set project was commenced in November 2009. The aim of this project is to design and develop a reference set that meets the needs of populating the most commonly used data elements in Australian General Practice electronic health record. The other aspect of the project is to map the reference sets to appropriate international classifications currently used in the Australian general practice environment, specifically ICPC-2 (Wonca).

Australian Medicines Terminology

The Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT) model was reviewed nationally in August 2009 and a new model schema was agreed in December 2009. This will now form the baseline of version 3 of the AMT and allow integration with SNOMED CT-AU. When AMT v3 is available it will be published in parallel to the current release of AMT (v2.x) for a period of time.

The implementation of AMT into clinical systems is currently being rolled out as part of a state wide implementation program. This process will also involve assessment of AMT descriptions within clinical systems. Alignment of AMT to a commercial medicine decision support and knowledge base vendor system is also underway.

Number of Affiliate Licensees

SNOMED CT Affiliate License membership as of 24^th February 2010:

Organisations (193)

Academic Institutions (8)
Consultants (19)
Educator / Trainers (3)
Jurisdictional (State or Federal Government Departments) (21)
Peak or Professional Bodies (4)
Private Health Service Providers (25)
Vendor / System Developers (75)
Other (38)

Additional organisational licenses (216) (extra licenses granted to the existing organisations categorised above)

Individuals (81)

Affiliate Activities

There are strong indications that interest is steadily growing across the healthcare sector and academia for either SNOMED education for research purposes or investigating suitability for existing programs.

There are also a considerable number of pilot projects in a range of clinical and medication software developments. More



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Australia 2010 Update 2009 Update 2008 Update 2007 Update Canada Cyprus Denmark Estonia Iceland Lithuania Malta New Zealand Poland Singapore Slovak Republic Slovenia Spain Sweden The Netherlands United Kingdom United States	2009 Update National Activities As part of NEHTA’s commitment to continuous improvement in the provision of high quality products and services to the community, a review of Terminology Services was undertaken in 2009. Terminology Services has now become the National Clinical Terminology & Information Service and fully incorporates the Clinical Information Initiative. This review was intended to ensure that there is clarity around the purpose and function of the group, along with a focus on providing products and services that advance the National e-health agenda. Implementation plans and other activities The first release SNOMED CT-AU was released in December 2009. SNOMED CT-AU provides SNOMED CT with local variations and customizations of terms relevant to the Australian healthcare sector. SNOMED CT-AU is the local release of the SNOMED CT international resources along with Australian developed terminology and documentation for implementation in Australian IT systems. Whereas NEHTA has previously released separate terminology products as they were developed. SNOMED CT-AU allows the products to be released to license holders as a single product. Future releases of SNOMED CT-AU will continue to be released on a six monthly cycle. SNOMED CT-AU will be release in both RF1 and RF2 formats. Work is currently underway for the second national release of SNOMED CT-AU, which is scheduled for release in May 2010. This release will build on the previous national release with the intention to include more locally relevant reference sets. Emergency Department Reference Set A focus of activity has been the development of Emergency Department reference sets for ‘Diagnosis’ and ‘Presenting Problem’ with an intention to have these reference sets implemented nationally by June 2011. The reference sets will be made available in the May 2010 release. The first phase of this implementation activity is to target appropriate early adoption sites and associated vendors. Vendor consultation to date reflects the majority of ED clinical information systems in use nationally, assuring downstream benefits of SNOMED CT –AU integration over time. General Practice Reference Set Another domain specific reference set project was commenced in November 2009. The aim of this project is to design and develop a reference set that meets the needs of populating the most commonly used data elements in Australian General Practice electronic health record. The other aspect of the project is to map the reference sets to appropriate international classifications currently used in the Australian general practice environment, specifically ICPC-2 (Wonca). Australian Medicines Terminology The Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT) model was reviewed nationally in August 2009 and a new model schema was agreed in December 2009. This will now form the baseline of version 3 of the AMT and allow integration with SNOMED CT-AU. When AMT v3 is available it will be published in parallel to the current release of AMT (v2.x) for a period of time. The implementation of AMT into clinical systems is currently being rolled out as part of a state wide implementation program. This process will also involve assessment of AMT descriptions within clinical systems. Alignment of AMT to a commercial medicine decision support and knowledge base vendor system is also underway. Number of Affiliate Licensees SNOMED CT Affiliate License membership as of 24^th February 2010: Organisations (193) Academic Institutions (8) Consultants (19) Educator / Trainers (3) Jurisdictional (State or Federal Government Departments) (21) Peak or Professional Bodies (4) Private Health Service Providers (25) Vendor / System Developers (75) Other (38) Additional organisational licenses (216) (extra licenses granted to the existing organisations categorised above) Individuals (81) Affiliate Activities There are strong indications that interest is steadily growing across the healthcare sector and academia for either SNOMED education for research purposes or investigating suitability for existing programs. There are also a considerable number of pilot projects in a range of clinical and medication software developments. More