From the NLM - New SNOMED CT® encoded Nursing Problem List Subset

[rninformatics, DNP, RN]

Announcing the new SNOMED CT® encoded Nursing Problem List Subset is available from the National Library of Medicine

We are pleased to Announce the new SNOMED CT® encoded Nursing Problem List Subset is available from the National Library of Medicine for use in Patient Problem Lists, meeting the mandate of Meaningful Use Stage One.

The SNOMED CT® encoded Nursing Problem List Subset, intended for use in patients' problem lists, is an output of the Unified Medical Language System® (UMLS®) Metathesaurus® that is based on nursing diagnosis concepts found within the Metathesaurus.

Purpose and use of subset

The main purpose of the Nursing Problem List Subset of SNOMED CT® is to facilitate the use of SNOMED CT® as the primary coding terminology for nursing problems used in care planning, problem lists or other summary level clinical documentation.

The use of a common list of SNOMED CT® concepts will maximize data interoperability among institutions. Local problem list vocabularies often need to expand to satisfy specific user needs. Institutions that are using their own nursing problem list vocabularies are encouraged to map them to SNOMED CT® with a focus on these nursing diagnosis concepts to facilitate data interoperability. The UMLS Terminology Services (UTS) includes a SNOMED CT browser that may be used for this purpose. The SNOMED CT® Browser is available through the SNOMED CT® menu of the UMLS Terminology Services. You must have a UMLS license to access the list. To obtain a license, free of charge, go to http://www.nlm.nih.gov/databases/umls.html.

Additional resources from the UMLS

For each SNOMED CT® concept in the subset, the corresponding UMLS CUI (concept unique identifier) is listed. By using these identifiers, users can access resources available in the UMLS e.g., additional synonyms, text definitions for many terms, corresponding codes in other terminologies, etc.

The file identifies what we hope is a useful Nursing Problem List Subset of SNOMED CT®, but does not include all the information likely to be required to make effective use of SNOMED CT® in an application, such as synonyms that may include more clinician-friendly terms than the SNOMED CT® fully-specified name. The identifiers in the file can be used to extract more complete information for these concepts from either the UMLS release files or the SNOMED CT® native format files. The file can be found at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/Snomed/nursing_problemlist_subset.html.

Feedback and suggestions

We welcome any questions, comments or suggestions that would improve the quality, accuracy and usability of the subset. Please send feedback to Vivian Auld, National Library of Medicine (email: [email protected]).

Acknowledgements

We thank the IHTSDO, the IHTSDO Nursing Work Group, the IHTSDO Nursing Work Group Problem List Project Team, co-lead by Susan Matney, MSN, FAAN and Judith Warren, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACMI, and the NLM for their participation in and support of this project.