SNOMED International is excited to announce Belize as our most recent SNOMED International Member in the Central American and Caribbean region.

Other countries in the region that have also recently become SNOMED International Members are El Salvador and Jamaica.

SNOMED CT is a comprehensive, multilingual healthcare terminology created for use by healthcare professionals to capture the care of individuals in an electronic health record and facilitate sharing, decision support and analytics, to support safe and effective health information exchange.

Belize, an ethnically, geographically and culturally diverse country, is located on the northeast side of Central America south of the Yucatán Peninsula. A nation of close to 500,000 citizens, the country’s official language is English; its second most widely spoken language is Spanish.

Belize’s adoption of SNOMED CT is part of its efforts to digitize and modernize its healthcare delivery services. In 2022, the country announced the digital transformation of its health sector via a European Union-funded Health Sector Support Programme Belize Project to develop and implement a Clinical Data Exchange Platform to enable interconnectivity and interoperability between various different platforms such as Belize's Health Information System (BHIS).

In June 2024, the Belize Ministry of Health and Wellness announced it was seeking Inter-American Development Bank funding for further integration of digital technologies as part of its work to strengthen the BHIS and develop a more comprehensive framework for telemedicine, starting with a pilot program focused on mental health services.

The country’s Ministry of Health and Wellness will act as the National Release Centre (NRC) for the country. NRCs serve as the interface between SNOMED International, the national users and Affiliates, and other Members.

“We are excited to see a number of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean becoming SNOMED international Members as one important element of their digital health strategies,” said SNOMED International CEO Don Sweete. “Belize’s decision to become a Member demonstrates that SNOMED CT is designed to support Members of all sizes, and we know Belize will also benefit from the knowledge and experience of other countries in the region such as El Salvador and Jamaica.”

SNOMED International is an international not-for-profit organization that develops and promotes the use of SNOMED CT, a comprehensive, multilingual healthcare terminology created for use by healthcare professionals to capture the care of individuals in an electronic health record and facilitate sharing, decision support and analytics, to support safe and effective health information exchange. The purpose of SNOMED International is to develop, maintain, promote, and enable the uptake and correct use of its terminology products in health systems, services and products around the world.