SNOMED CT - History

History

Over four decades, SNOMED has developed from a pathology-specific nomenclature (SNOP) into a logic-based health care terminology. In January 2002, SNOMED CT was created by the merger, expansion, and restructuring of the College of American Pathologists (CAP) SNOMED RT (Reference Terminology) and the UK National Health Service (NHS) Clinical Terms (also known as the Read codes). The historical strength of the SNOMED was its coverage of medical specialties, while the strength of Clinical Terms Version 3 was its terminologies for general practice. SNOMED CT cross maps to such other terminologies as ICD-9-CM, ICD-O3, ICD-10, Laboratory LOINC and OPCS-4. It supports ANSI, DICOM, HL7, and ISO standards. SNOMED CT is currently used in a joint project with the WHO as the ontological basis of the upcoming ICD 11. The National Library of Medicine (NLM), on behalf of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, entered into an agreement with College of American Pathologists for a perpetual license for the core SNOMED CT (in Spanish and English) and ongoing updates. The contract provides to NLM a perpetual license to distribute SNOMED within the NLM’s Unified Medical Language System UMLS Metathesaurus for no cost use within the U.S. by both U.S. government (federal, state, local, and territorial) and private organizations. The contract also covers updates to SNOMED CT issued by the College of American Pathologists between June 30, 2003 and June 29, 2008. In April 2007, SNOMED CT was acquired by IHTSDO, The International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation. SNOMED CT is currently available in American English, British English, Spanish, Danish, and Swedish with other translations under way or nearly completed in French, and Dutch.