SNOMED CT Case for Investment - Final September 2021 - Flipbook - Page 9
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The SNOMED CT
Viral Pneumonia Example
S NOMED C T
What is it?
Concepts
Descriptions
Represent clinical thoughts.
Every concept has a unique
numeric identifier.
Enable meaning-based queries
Link human readable terms to
concepts.
Assist searching for concepts
and provides multi-lingual
support
Relationships
Viral pneumonia is linked through a set of ‘is a’ relationships, that represent a
poly-hierarchy of sub-types. Viral pneumonia ‘is a’ infective pneumonia. Infective
pneumonia ‘is a’ infection, and similarly infective pneumonia ‘is a’ respiratory
disease. SNOMED CT also links concepts to the applicable part of the body, or a
finding site. For example, the viral pneumonia finding site is the lung. Finally
SNOMED CT links concepts to a causative agent. For example, the viral
pneumonia causative agent is a virus.
Link concepts to other concepts
whose meaning is related in some
way.
Support aggregation and queries