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Product releases • General

SNOMED CT-AU and Australian Medicines Terminology January 2020 Release

Published 24 January 2020

The National Clinical Terminology Service (NCTS) is pleased to announce that the January combined release of SNOMED CT® AU1 and the Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT) is now available to registered users from the NCTS website.

The Release Note is provided alongside the combined RF2 release files which are available as Full, Snapshot and Delta, in addition to the traditional combined release bundle (labelled "ALL"). To access the Release Note and download the RF2 files, select SNOMED CT-AU > Release Bundles from the ACCESS tab.

The reference sets are available in TSV format (containing pre-computed values for concept IDs, Fully Specified Name, Preferred Term and Synonym description only) and as HL7™FHIR® standard2 value sets (which may also be obtained via the integration interface of the National Terminology Server. To download the reference sets, select SNOMED CT-AU > Reference Sets from the ACCESS tab.

Important Information

Document Library Update
The following document has been added to the Document Library:

Quick Tips

Each month we will be providing you with a new quick tip on the use of our products or how to navigate our website, as well as documents with links to further information (where applicable). If you have a suggestion for a tip, please let us know using the feedback details below.

Benefits of terminology

Use of SNOMED CT-AU and AMT for the recording of high-quality clinical data within electronic health records that are shared across multiple systems with no loss of meaning or detail provides benefits for patients, healthcare providers/clinicians, software vendors, healthcare organisations/funders and researchers. For example:

  • Better quality care and less adverse events for patients due to seamless sharing of fuller, higher quality clinical information with other caregivers in their healthcare journeys;
  • Access to better decision support systems and alerts;
  • Better treatment pathways due to more evidence-based clinical guidelines and practices;
  • Content covering broad clinical areas and specialties;
  • Support for language, local or specialty differences in descriptions;
  • Available maps or links to many healthcare datasets or classifications;
  • Foundation in national and international standards (e.g. My Health Record and FHIR);
  • Reduced costs due to less duplicated laboratory testing and adverse events;
  • Better population health monitoring/trends via enhanced data analytics and reporting;
  • Ability to do comparative data analysis across local, national and global SNOMED CT-coded datasets and across other code sets (where mappings with SNOMED CT are available).

Please refer to the following for more detailed benefits – SNOMED CT Starter Guide and Vendor Introduction to SNOMED CT. Alternatively contact us via the feedback details below.

Education Sessions

Webinars

The NCTS plans to schedule further webinars in 2020; all licence holders will be notified when these dates are made available. If you would like to register an expression of interest or request a specific topic, please contact us using the feedback details below.

Please also visit the webinars section in the Document Library to view the existing pre-recorded webinars.

Where can I find technical guides and other resources?

All SNOMED CT AU and AMT documentation, including technical and implementation guides, is freely available for download from the NCTS Document Library without registering or logging in. However, if you are a registered user we recommend that you log in before downloading any material so that we can better target our communications to you, based on the resources that you have downloaded.

Terminology browsers

Shrimp3 is available online at http://ontoserver.csiro.au/shrimp. Search both SNOMED CT AU and AMT content, or browse the hierarchies by selecting the latest version of “SNOMED Clinical Terms Australian Extension” in the drop-down menu.

Feedback

Development by the NCTS relies on the input and cooperation of the Australian healthcare community. We value your feedback and encourage questions, comments, or suggestions about our products. You can contact us by completing the online support request form, via email [email protected], or call 1300 901 001.


  1. "SNOMED" and "SNOMED CT" are registered trademarks of the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO).
  2. FHIR is a registered trademark of Health Level Seven International.
  3. Shrimp was developed by the Australian e-Health Research Centre (AEHRC).

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