Integrating sources for a clinical reference terminology: experience linking SNOMED to LOINC and drug vocabularies

Achieving the promise of higher quality, lower cost and more available health care through electronic medical records requires the support of a comprehensive clinical reference terminology. In a previous paper we described SNOMED RT (reference terminology), and the data structures and logic syntax that support the transformation of the SNOMED III nomenclature into the SNOMED RT reference terminology. In this paper, we describe an approach to linking SNOMED RT to existing nomenclatures in the area of laboratory test names (LOINC) and therapeutic drugs (Multum's MediSource Drug Lexicon), in order to achieve an integrated whole that solves the problem of a clinical reference terminology.