A good terminology is essential in many connections. This also applies within the healthcare sector. For co-operation to succeed in healthcare it is of the utmost importance to have a unique terminology. Development of a comprehensive terminology like SNOMED CT, however, is a large, resource intensive task, and one may find it difficult to involve all relevant parties at the right times, when a task of this magnitude is at hand. This is the reason why you benefit from having the terminologies undergo a qualification process. Employing a well structured qualification process makes it possible to involve the clinical staff in the development of a good, professional terminology, and thereby have them take ownership of the terminology, they are going to use in their normal work. At the same time you will achieve synchronisation with the official terminology. HealthTerm®’s qualification workflow supports these tasks.

Qualification Workflow:
HealthTerm® is the market leader when it comes to qualification of terminologies. In HealthTerm® the qualification processes are managed using workflows. This way you get a controlled process flow regarding qualification of terminologies. The qualification workflow in HealthTerm® facilitates many parties to work on an individual basis or work in groups qualifying concepts; all of this managed by introducing user rights in two stages: the qualification stage and the review stage. 

Qualification Stage:
In HealthTerm®’s qualification module a user is given rights to a project containing concepts. Within this project the user can edit the individual concepts by assigning a status of in use or not in use. Another way to address this offered by the qualification module is the possibility to create synonyms to a concept. During the process the user assigns the status of “in use”, but appends that the following synonyms should be created. The entire process takes place in a temporary space, whereby the original terminology is untouched, until the review stage may give a final acceptance that these changes shall be made public.  

All actions in the qualification module undergo history logging, which makes it easy for all involved parties to keep track of changes during and after the process completion. Qualification may be applied to translated concepts and terms as well as to the official terminology. This may be done in a general manner or in a manner specific to a clinical specialty. 

Review Stage:
HealthTerm® offers an additional control step in the qualification process in the form of a review stage. During this stage the changes to existing concepts in an existing terminology and suggestions for new concepts are reviewed. When reaching full acceptance the changes may be published and the terminology updated with the most recent changes.   

Requesting new concepts:
In HealthTerm® it is possible to suggest new concepts to be added to a terminology. These may be suggested by registered users of the HealthTerm® application. However, also clinicians all over the world may use HealthTerm® to suggest new concepts to be added to a terminology. Hereby HealthTerm® supports all kinds of users of a terminology.  

Registered users may suggest new concepts by using the qualification workflow. When suggesting new concepts you identify at the same time which relations this concept should have. That is, you may model concepts. Dependent on the individual user’s knowledge of modelling this may take place at a simple or an advanced level.  

Other clinicians using a terminology may use HealthTem to suggest new concepts. Via a web based interface external clinicians may register as external HealthTerm® users and subsequently suggest new concepts. By automatic assignment of user rights a user may be restricted to suggesting new concepts inside a given namespace. These rights are assigned based on the user’s official email address. 

In conclusion: HealthTerm®’s qualification module and request module offer a unique opportunity to maintain an always updated high quality terminology.