Anne Randorff Højen
Department of Health Science and Technology, Medical Informatics, Aalborg University, Denmark
Kirstine Rosenbeck
Department of Health Science and Technology, Medical Informatics, Aalborg University, Denmark
Pia Elberg
Department of Health Science and Technology, Medical Informatics, Aalborg University, Denmark
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Published in: Scandinavian Conference on Health Informatics 2012; October 2-3; Linköping; Sverige
Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 70:8, p. 49-49
Published: 2012-09-28
ISBN: 978-91-7519-758-6
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
In every corner of the health sector there is a need for information to be captured; shared and retrieved. A wide range of information is to be exchanged between the various IT-systems within the health sector; such as information concerning the patient’s medical case history; information’s from other departments and cross sector information. The accessibility of information is important for the treatment and care of a patient. Further; the ability to compare clinical information is a necessity for generating clinical overviews and statistics.
However; one of the greatest challenges when considering data communication in health care is multiple definitions of the same concept. [1] Therefore; use of standardized clinical terminologies is a prerequisite in the quest of achieving semantic interoperability.[2] However; ambiguous and inconsistent use of terminology can hinder data for being shared and therefore to be reused.
It is a fact; that the IT-systems are continuously adjusted and refined. Concepts are being added end resigned to fit the current information needs. Therefore; it is of great importance to maintain a reliable overview of the concepts within the systems to know what concepts are already being used so that added concepts conform to the existing.
The objective of this study is to clarify the needs for a tool that can support a coherent SNOMED CT implementation and to specify these needs in a system design.
[1] Rasmussen AR; Rosenbeck K. SNOMED CT implementation: implications of choosing clinical findings or observable entities. Studies in health technology and informatics 2011;169:809-813.
[2] European Communities. Semantic Interoperability for Better Health and Safer Healthcare. 2009.
