title: SNOMED CT in multidisciplinary clinical practice--evaluation of usefulness for classification and coding of care-planning procedures.
abstract: Studies of the usefulness of SNOMED CT in everyday clinical practice have received little attention. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of SNOMED CT in a multidisciplinary clinical setting. Another aim was to examine how well the terminology of care-planning procedures in a local development project could be mapped to SNOMED CT, and to explore the terminological surroundings in terms of superordinate concepts, subordinate concepts and coordinate concepts. A term list of 66 non-analysed types of procedures, considered necessary in the documentation of care planning, had been compiled in a local development project. The Clue-browser, version 5.5, was used to browse for matching concepts in SNOMED CT, and the degree of correspondence was assessed for each item. Of the 66 procedures, 72% corresponded completely and 22% corresponded partly to concepts in SNOMED CT. No match was found for 6% of the procedures. More subordinate concepts) were lacking in 30% of the concepts. The study showed that SNOMED CT could be mapped fairly well to care-planning procedures in a multidisciplinary setting such as advanced home health care. The terminological surroundings were extensive and stable for superordinate concepts (stem concepts), but unstable regarding subordinate concepts. SNOMED CT and the Clue-browser were feasible for choosing terminology with machine-readable codes for a specific area where there is no terminology in Swedish.
authors.affiliation: Karolinska Institutet, Department of Neurobiology, Caring Sciences and Society, Center for Family Medicine, Stockholm, Sweden. anna.vikstrom@sll.se
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vikström
authors.forename: Gunnar
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nilsson
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008511:Medicine; D010347:Patient Care Planning / Q000145:classification*; D011216:Practice Management, Medical; D013038:Specialization; D013548:Sweden; D039061:Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine