SNOMED CT-AU and Australian Medicines Terminology February 2020 Release

The National Clinical Terminology Service (NCTS) is pleased to announce that the February combined release of SNOMED CT® AU¹ and the Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT) is now available to registered users from the NCTS website.

The Release Note is provided alongside the combined RF2 release files which are available as Full, Snapshot and Delta, in addition to the traditional combined release bundle (labelled "ALL"). To access the Release Note and download the RF2 files, select SNOMED CT-AU > Release Bundles from the ACCESS tab.

The reference sets are available in TSV format (containing pre-computed values for concept IDs, Fully Specified Names, Preferred Terms and Synonym descriptions only) and as HL7™FHIR® standard² value sets (which may also be obtained via the integration interface of the National Terminology Server. To download the reference sets, select SNOMED CT-AU > Reference Sets from the ACCESS tab.

Important Information

SNOMED CT-AU/AMT Usage Survey

SNOMED International, in conjunction with the Australian Digital Health Agency, is conducting an annual survey of all account holders on their use of SNOMED CT and the Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT). The purpose of this survey is to gather information about SNOMED CT/AMT use and benefits in order to inform our product and service development, and better support the user community.

The Statement of Usage survey requirements were outlined in the NCTS Registration Terms and is a condition of continued access to the licensed NCTS Registration Content. The Agency may choose to suspend your NCTS account if your survey is not submitted by this time.

To access the survey, CLICK HERE. The survey will take 5-15 minutes to complete, depending on your usage.

The deadline to complete the survey is 28 February 2020.

If you have any questions, please contact the NCTS Product Team at [email protected]

Concept retirement in the “Allergy to substance” sub-hierarchy

Concepts in the "419199007 |Allergy to substance (finding)|" sub-hierarchy that represent allergy to "structure + role" are being considered for inactivation in the SNOMED International July 2020 release and will be replaced by new concepts representing allergy to substance structure, e.g. 294389003 |Allergy to aminoquinoline antimalarial agent (finding)| will be replaced by Allergy to aminoquinoline.

In addition, concepts in "419199007 |Allergy to substance (finding)|" sub-hierarchy that represent allergy to "role groupers" will be inactivated, e.g. 294461000 |Allergy to antibacterial drug (finding)|.

If you have reason(s) to retain these concepts for use or believe your implementation will be impacted, please email [email protected] with your use case and supporting clinical references by 2nd March 2020.

Education Sessions

Webinars

The 2020 webinar series is starting in February with the following topic: Terminologies and classifications: SNOMED CT-AU and ICD-10-AM use in Australia: Tuesday 25 February 2020, 2pm to 3pm AEDT.

This webinar will be co-presented with AIHW and IHPA and go through an overview of commonly used code sets in health; SNOMED CT-AU features and main use cases; ICD-10-AM features and main use cases; International Classification of Diseases revision; and maps between SNOMED CT and ICD-10.

To register for this webinar, CLICK HERE.

The NCTS plans to schedule further webinars during 2020; all license holders will be notified when these dates are made available. If you would like to register an expression of interest or request a specific topic, please contact us via the feedback details below.

Please also visit the webinars section in the Document Library to view existing pre-recorded webinars.

Where can I find technical guides and other resources?

All SNOMED CT-AU and AMT documentation, including technical and implementation guides, is freely available for download from the NCTS Document Library without registering or logging in. However, if you are a registered user we recommend that you log in before downloading any material so that we can better target our communications to you, based on the resources that you have downloaded.

Terminology browsers

Shrimp³ is available online at http://ontoserver.csiro.au/shrimp. Search both SNOMED CT-AU and AMT content, or browse the hierarchies by selecting the latest version of “SNOMED Clinical Terms Australian Extension” in the drop-down menu.

Feedback

Development by the NCTS relies on the input and cooperation of the Australian healthcare community. We value your feedback and encourage questions, comments, or suggestions about our products. You can contact us by completing the online support request form, emailing [email protected], or calling 1300 901 001.

Thank you for your continued support.

Regards, NCTS