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Working Groups >>  IOTA & SNOMED CT

November 2009 Reportpdf icon

Mission Statement:

The SNOMED CT's Anaesthesia Working group will provide input, evaluate, and act to guide the development and maintenance of anaesthesia content in SNOMED CT. The group will provide recommendations to the SNOMED Editorial Board on areas where content changes or additions are needed and bring an international perspective to the terminology in relation to the domain of Anaesthesia. The working group will act as a source of information and expertise and guide the SNOMED content team in prioritizing projects and deliverables relating to content in the Anaesthesia arena with the goal of improving the overall terminology.

The Achievements so far:

In late 2004 a read only termset was released which can be read with a software (java) based browser. Included terms covered General anaesthesia, Local anaesthesia, Vascular access procedures, Anaesthetic drugs, Fluids and blood products, Monitoring terms, Anaesthesia equipment, Airway management, Some administrative terminology, Scales and assessments relevant to anaesthesia, Positioning and patient protection, Anaesthesia related findings and diagnoses.

These are currently being validated in a clinical setting.

What are we doing now ?:

One of the key work areas for 2005 is adverse event terminology for anaesthesia and its inclusion in SNOMED CT (see jargon buster). A web meeting was held on 11 th January with representation from multiple interested parties including the Australian Patient Safety Foundation, World Federation of Societies in Anaesthesia (WFSA), ASA and others. A collaborative project to develop standard taxonomy of terms and concepts for adverse events in anaesthesia is being planned.

The next stages for IOTA include completion of pre operative assessment terminology terms to support NSQIP (National Surgical Quality Improvement Program), Specialized terms necessary for anaesthesia subspecialties, Adverse events and complications.

What Input can you provide?

We are looking for members to test out our term set in the clinical setting. Basically we want to look at small areas of terms to identify missing items and see if the ranking of these items fits in a logical and common sense way. The data has been sumarised in an Excel spreadsheet which is a guide to areas of terms that need reviewing. Changes or suggestions can be submitted in any way, although final review will be undertaken be the IOTA team.

IOTA has created a web browser for SNOMED CT terms for anaesthesia information management systems. Members of SCATA are invited to review or comment on this work. The browser can be accessed on the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation website http://www.apsf.org/resource_center/IOTAwebbrowser.mspx

These pages contain details on how to obtain a user name and password, a user guide and a feedback form.

November 2008PDF ion

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