2020 SNOMED International Annual Report Digital - Flipbook - Page 43
Uruguay focuses on
COVID-19 related work
and minimum data sets
implementation in 2020
Throughout 2020, Uruguay‘s NRC mainly focused on tackling
and controlling the COVID-19 pandemic and on Minimum
Data Sets implementation.
INtEROPERAbILIdAd
sNomed ct:
adaptacioNes para la
paNdemia de coVid-19
Q&A
with Alejandro Lopez Osornio
Dr. Alejandro Lopez Osornio
Miembro del TRAG Terminology
Advisory Group
(Terminology Release AdvisoryRelease
Group)
SNOMED International
Q: With your ongoing participation, how have you
been able to impact or advance SNOMED CT?
A: As a member of the TRAG, one important advance
made during 2020 was the definition of the strategy for
inclusion of concrete domains in SNOMED CT. Concrete
domains allow concept definitions to include attributes
that support concrete data types, such as decimal,
integer, string or date/time.
Q: Why is this important to healthcare delivery
and management?
A: Being able to represent concrete values enables
implementers to create better links with knowledge
bases and decision support systems. For example, it
enables us to extract from SNOMED all clinical drugs
with the active ingredient Atenolol, having a strength of
50mg or less, or packages with at least 14 tabs, etc.
Healthcare institutions have made great progress working
on standardizing and structuring clinical information through
the implementation of CDA Level 3 Minimum Data Sets at
a national level scope. Semantic interoperability was made
possible due to the use of SNOMED CT to code both the
variable and the value selected by the clinician in the Clinical
Document. The list of values was made available in SNOMED
CT subsets and through a terminology server as well.
En esta columna, el Dr. Alejandro López osornio,
Consultor en Interoperabilidad en Salud,
destaca el rol que tienen estándares como
SNoMED CT para facilitar la identificación de
casos, de pacientes sospechosos o de resultados
de estudios, y así asegurar que la comunicación
de esta información sea lo más completa
posible. En ese sentido, explica las últimas
actualizaciones de términos incorporados en la
ediciones Internacional, Español Internacional y
en la Argentina.
Minimum Data Sets are shared through a national
interoperability platform contributing to patient continuity of
care regardless of the point of care, under national regulation.
The NRC has also worked on COVID-19 related codification to
support Uruguay’s national coronavirus strategy including tests,
adverse reactions and COVID-19 laboratory Minimum Data Set.
COVID-19 vaccines were also created in the national extension.
Also, a strategy of coding and notifying the Ministry of Health
and National Emergency System on respiratory conditions
served as a key element in public health decision support in
the pandemic.
MEMBER SUCCESS
STORY> AMERICAS
SNOMED International 2020 Annual Report
43