Health care terminology is developing concurrently with developments in medical knowledge. Increased involvement of patients and relatives means that laymen’s terms are playing an integral role in health care terminology. The first stage of this development is to supplement the Danish translation with the synonyms and terms used among health care professionals and in their work with patients and relatives. This is carried out in close partnership with the individual clinical specialities and special clinics throughout Denmark. After the first iteration the ongoing maintenance will be performed by a maintenance organisation within the Danish National Board of Health. Using a web-based interface (HealthTerm), the user will be able to view the terminology and offer suggestions for new synonyms and concepts.

Following the editorial process, the new suggestions will be updated into the Danish extension. The maintenance and terminology development will likewise take place on the same web-based IT system (HealthTerm), as with the translation process, so that all processes may be assembled in a central place that is always updated and transparent with complete history. Terminology is distributed via the website to the various IT systems around the country.

The Danish National Board of Health’s Basic Electronic Health Record (BEHR) supports the clinical process with contributions from all relevant professional sectors for each individual period of care (shared care). Based on context and the user’s need for level of granularity, SNOMED CT® provides tailored subsets as input data for the business model classes. Along with structured guidelines, the model and the terminology form the foundation for knowledge sharing in the Electronic Patient record (EPR).

SNOMED CT is the most comprehensive and precise clinical reference terminology available. The Danish National Board of Health uses SNOMED CT® standards to construct mapping tables that ensure financial and statistical comparison with historical health care data in e.g. Diagnosis Related Groupings (DRG). Translating SNOMED CT® is a project that demands considerable resources, but on the other hand resources are conserved when compared with the construction of a new independent terminology. All terminology related processes and tasks are collected in a webbased IT system (HealthTerm) to ensure consistency and integrity. These tasks include: translation, extension, maintenance, mapping, QA, and distribution.