SNOMED International continues to develop tools that support our community to adopt and implement SNOMED CT and realize its benefits. These tools, many of which are self-serve, are intended to make it easier for implementers with a range of experience with SNOMED CT and other clinical terminologies.
That’s why we recently launched a collection of SNOMED CT Implementation Demonstrators, a curated selection of examples that showcase the many ways SNOMED CT can be implemented across different healthcare and technical use cases. In this Q&A, Implementation Support Team members Anne Randorff Højen, Implementation Support Specialist; Alejandro Lopez Osornio, Senior Implementation Specialist; and Kai Kewley, Technical Implementation Support Specialist, explain what has been developed and why, as well as how these tools can support the SNOMED CT community.
Q: What is an implementation demonstrator?
A: It is a tool that shows you how SNOMED CT works in specific use cases and situations. For example, the Clinical User Interface demo provides a simulation of clinical data entry on an electronic health record using SNOMED FHIR Terminology services. The demonstrators show how SNOMED CT supports interoperability, clinical workflows, and data standardization.
Q: Why did we develop them and who was involved in the process?
A: We wanted to offer hands-on, interactive ways to deliver a practical understanding of SNOMED CT implementations in a way that makes it easy to grasp key concepts. We developed these tools through the collaboration and expertise of the global SNOMED CT community of clinical experts, reflecting best practices and innovative use cases.
Q: What are the categories of demonstrators that have been developed?
A: There are various interactive demonstrations across key categories. Some are clinical; others are categorized as educational, while others are tools- application- or utility-focused. So there’s a wide range of different aspects of the implementation experience. There is even a demo that uses the OpenAI ChatGPT API to demonstrate the use of SNOMED CT with Large Language Models, and a fun game (SNOGUESS) you can play to test your own knowledge of SNOMED CT!
Q: What are the three most important things to communicate about these demonstrators?
A: First, each is open source, meaning there are no licence fees required to use them. Second, they are free to explore, meaning you can easily see what they can do, and third, they are easy to replicate, meaning you can use them in your own context, again, without any licensing fees.
Q: Who should explore these demonstrators? What level of SNOMED CT expertise do users need?
A: We developed these tools for developers, implementers, and healthcare professionals, which covers a broad swath of healthcare, but they are specifically targeted to those working with SNOMED CT. Whether you are fairly new to the terminology or more experienced, we believe you will find them useful.
Q: Who uses these demonstrators?
A: Since the demonstrators are hosted on a free GitHub service, we can’t track its use, but SNOMED International uses it during various online sessions to clarify implementation strategies. It also plays a role in the practical activities of our new implementation course and helps illustrate our responses to Freshdesk tickets with inquiries, among other uses. As an open-source resource, it aims to help implementers grasp best practice implementation patterns and allows them to share the code with their development teams as a reference.
Q: Where can I find them?
A: Visit https://implementation.snomed.org/showcase/demonstrators