SNOMED CT Case for Investment - Final September 2021 - Flipbook - Page 42
FULL REPORT
S NOMED C T
But… What is It Really
The SNOMED CT concepts are organized into hierarchies. There are 19 SNOMED CT parent concepts, so 19 SNOMED CT hierarchies.
‘IS A’ statements connect concepts within a hierarchy. Using our example, viral pneumonia is a infective pneumonia in the clinical
finding concept hierarchy.
Attribute relationships (e.g. finding site, causative agent) connect concepts among the nineteen different concept hierarchies. For
example, the finding site for infective pneumonia (i.e. in the clinical finding concept hierarchy) is the lung (i.e. in the body structure
concept hierarchy). So in this case, the finding site relationship links the two concept hierarchies.
But… for most people, this is still quite difficult to understand.
The Genealogy Analogy
Tracing our ancestors back through time through the use of Family Trees provides an excellent way to understand how concepts,
hierarchies and relationships work. Using a Genealogy Analogy, see Appendix 1 here for a more detailed description of the benefits
derived from using concepts and relationships in a family tree.
1.
SNOMED International is the trading name of the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization (IHTSDO)