SNOMED CT is 

• a clinical healthcare terminology
• a resource with comprehensive, scientifically-validated content
• essential for electronic health records
• a terminology that can cross-map to other international standards
• already used in more than fifty countries

SNOMED CT provides the core general terminology for the electronic health record (EHR) and contains more than 311,000 active concepts with unique meanings and formal logic-based definitions organized into hierarchies. When implemented in software applications, SNOMED CT can be used to represent clinically relevant information consistently, reliably and comprehensively as an integral part of producing electronic health records.

SNOMED CT Benefits
SNOMED CT & Meaningful Use

Introducing SNOMED CT (presentation)