This book is an essential guide to using SNOMED CT(R). It emphasises SNOMED CT's(R) importance to healthcare and describes how it is used to improve patient outcomes and deliver more effective healthcare. The book explains the main design features fundamental to using SNOMED CT(R) as a clinical terminology, and the tools and processes used to develop and extend it. With these foundations in place, it then offers practical advice to implementing SNOMED CT(R) in a health information environment, highlighting the intrinsic relationship between terminology and information models, and exploring how different types of health data can be represented.
The Essential Guide to SNOMED CT(R) offers guidance on how to customise the terminology for specific usages, by developing value sets, user-friendly terms, and new content. Effective principles and solutions for deploying terminology services, for designing user interfaces, and for storing, exchanging and querying SNOMED CT(R) data are also explored. The book concludes by discussing the role that SNOMED CT plays in semantic interoperability, and summarising some key messages for anyone using or planning to use SNOMED CT(R).
Dr Linda Bird is a director and principal consultant for Bellbird Enterprises Pty Ltd (Australia) and an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Victoria (Canada). Dr Bird has global expertise in clinical terminology, information modelling, electronic health records, data analytics, semantic interoperability, and health information standards including HL7 FHIR.
Over the last few years, Dr Bird has actively contributed to healthcare interoperability by designing information architectures for the Cancer Alliance Queensland in Australia, advising on SNOMED CT(R) medication models to Canada Health Infoway, leading SNOMED CT(R) implementation for the Cancer Control Agency (Te Aho o Te Kahu) in New Zealand, and teaching healthcare interoperability standards to postgraduate students at the University of Victoria in Canada. Through these roles, Dr Bird works with clinicians, vendors, data analysts, and terminologists to design and develop solutions that use SNOMED CT(R) with HL7(R) standards to share and analyse healthcare data, with the goal of improving patient outcomes and healthcare service delivery.
Prior to this, Dr Bird worked at SNOMED International from 2014 to 2022. During this time, she led the SNOMED CT Implementation Support Team, which provides advice and assistance to implementations of SNOMED CT around the world. She also led SNOMED International's Education Team, which delivers SNOMED CT training to over 80 countries. While at SNOMED International, Linda was the principal author of a number of key SNOMED CT specifications and guides, including the SNOMED CT query language (ECL), template syntax (ETL), machine readable concept model (MRCM), and COVID-19 Data Guide. She has also co-chaired a range of health informatics groups, including SNOMED on FHIR, the HL7 Clinical Information Modelling Initiative, the SNOMED CT computable languages working group, and the SNOMED CT drug extension user group.
Dr Bird's earlier roles include information architect at MOH Holdings (Singapore), senior information architect at NEHTA (Australia), team lead at DSTC (Australia), and senior data architect at Asymetrix Corporation (USA). Linda has a Ph.D. from the University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia and was awarded a university medal for her Bachelor of Information Technology with Honours.
