SNOMED CT: electronic health record enhances anesthesia patient safety

This article discusses the importance of electronic health records (EHRs) in anesthesiology, emphasizing the critical role of standardized clinical terminology in the EHR's structure. SNOMED Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT), developed by SNOMED International, a division of the College of American Pathologists, in collaboration with the United Kingdom's National Health Service, offers a controlled healthcare terminology with comprehensive coverage of diseases, clinical findings, etiologies, therapies, procedures, and outcomes. Recommended as the core general terminology for electronic patient medical record information in the United States, it offers flexibility in expressing clinical concepts, enabling clinicians to say things in multiple ways and still be understood. SNOMED CT's comprehensive, scientifically validated clinical terminology enables a consistent way of capturing, sharing, and aggregating health data across specialties and sites of care. Its benefits range from facilitating system interoperability to allowing greater shared access to patient health information where and when it is needed. The article concludes by informing readers of access to English and Spanish language editions of SNOMED CT's core content, which recently was licensed through the National Library of Medicine, a part of the National Institutes of Health within Department of Health and Human Services.