SNOMED International and the Chile-based National Center for Health Information Systems (Centro Nacional en Sistemas de Información en Salud - CENS) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to strengthen and support digital health transformation and enable regional healthcare interoperability in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). CENS is the executing agency of RACSEL (Latin American and Caribbean Digital Health Network).

The MOU positions SNOMED International as a strategic partner to RACSEL, a collaborative network across LAC.       

Collaboration goals

The goal of the MOU is to support the implementation of regional projects to strengthen the capacity of LAC countries in health management by promoting digital transformation in health, focusing on developing a regional agreement for cross-border digital health services, and strengthening the health information exchange model implemented in the region through the adoption of standards, architectures, governance and protocols, and data exchange and interoperability protocols.

SNOMED International’s role in the collaboration will include supporting health data interoperability and the implementation of SNOMED CT and other health data standards and providing education through webinars and other educational offerings. The organization will also participate in various activities to help promote health data interoperability initiatives across the LAC region. 

The organizations will work together to develop guidelines and protocols for the exchange of public health data and care information, including semantic and syntactic components, and to support participating countries in their adoption. They will also collaborate on developing architectural components and security frameworks for the exchange of healthcare, public health and telehealth data, and on identifying other areas where effective and practical cooperation may be possible.

“The alliance with SNOMED International will allow us to consolidate our efforts in the exchange of health information,” said Alejandra Piermarini, the coordinator of the RACSEL network. “This will not only improve the quality of health services in the region, but also strengthen our capacity to respond to public health emergencies," she added. For Ms Piermarini, "interoperability and regional collaboration are essential to transform digital health in Latin America and the Caribbean.”      

Regarding the agreement with SNOMED, ​​the executive director of CENS, May Chomali, stated that: “As CENS, we are committed to the continuous improvement of health systems in Latin America and the Caribbean. That is why we are pleased to establish this collaboration with SNOMED, ​​because with its global experience and our regional initiatives we will more strongly promote innovation and interoperability in digital health in our region, which has major health challenges.”

SNOMED International CEO Don Sweete describes the agreement as another step toward realizing the promise of digital health globally and a complementary addition to a number of projects in digitally maturing regions that the organization has participated in over the past few years, such as our work with the Bahmni Coalition. As a result of that initiative to integrate SNOMED CT into the Bahmni Electronic Medical Record, which is designed for use in low-resource, digitally maturing regions, clinicians, researchers and hospital administrators can use SNOMED CT in their health facilities to record diagnosis and other clinical data, as well as for reporting and Clinical Decision Support use-cases.

“SNOMED International has much to contribute to the RACSEL and CENS collaboration,” Don Sweete said. “We look forward to harnessing our knowledge and expertise to support our efforts with CENS in RACSEL to enable health data interoperability throughout the Latin American and Caribbean regions.” 

SNOMED International offers a number of products and services for our Spanish-speaking Members and other users, including the Spanish language version of the SNOMED CT International Edition, which is released twice a year; educational offerings such as the Spanish Foundations in SNOMED CT course; and an online space where users can communicate with other Spanish speakers and share their knowledge and expertise. 

Additionally, the organization makes available at no cost a number of other open products and services, including the Global Patient Set, a managed collection of existing SNOMED CT reference sets; the International Patient Summary Terminology, an electronic health record extract containing essential healthcare information for use in the unscheduled, cross-border care scenario, as well as for local, regional and other care scenarios; educational resources and webinars; numerous reference subsets and maps to and from SNOMED CT to other code systems, classifications or terminologies; and tools and software to support SNOMED CT adoption and use.  

About RACSEL

The Latin American and Caribbean Digital Health Network (RACSEL) is a collaborative initiative that brings together countries from Latin America and the Caribbean. Its main objective is to promote digital transformation in the health sector. RACSEL aims to facilitate the sharing of digital health experiences and knowledge across the region. It also seeks to promote the use of standards, tools, technologies and best practices, focusing on cross-border interoperability. The network is made up of 15 countries.

Visit racsel.org for more information.

About CENS

CENS aims to improve people's health care by promoting and adopting information technologies in the public and private sectors. To accomplish its mission, it promotes interoperability and the creation of an enabling environment by energizing the ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship in digital health, promoting the development of human capital, and certifying platforms and digital solutions to health needs. CENS has worked as the executive agency supporting RACSEL, leading the implementation of LACPASS, a regional project involving 16 countries to achieve cross-border interoperability that aims to reduce gaps in digital health, in the LAC region. CENS is currently implementing a second project with the goal of creating a secondary data space for use in epidemiological surveillance.

Countries that are participating in the projects are also SNOMED International Member countries (Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Jamaica and Uruguay); SNOMED International collaboration partners HL7 International and the World Health Organization are also CENS strategic partners. 

Visit cens.cl for more information.