Many countries are in the process of switching from paper-based patient journals to new electronic systems. This migration will require both a fundamental data model and a fundamental terminology. Standardised terminology has been a necessity for many years in connection with research, statistics and the daily routine at hospitals and clinics, but electronic journals will place even higher demands on the terminology of the future.

One of the most advanced terminologies is SNOMED CT®, which forms the foundation upon which HealthTerm has been constructed. HealthTerm is designed to support all processes linked to terminology management, including terminology browsing, subset selection and maintenance, mapping between different terminologies, creation and maintenance of different terminologies, quality assurance of terms and distribution. Accordingly, HealthTerm® is not limited to handling only SNOMED CT's sophisticated structure, but can also support other classifications and terminologies. HealthTerm® does this using a highly dynamic data model which records a history of all transactions and enables the various terminologies to be set up with all their matching attributes.

The broad spectrum of functions for terminology management, and the basic principles of distributed process control, are what make HealthTerm® unique. This means that all of the various tasks can be handled simultaneously via a web-based interface, while maintaining full control over processes via workflows and history logging. Similarly, an advanced user management system has been constructed around all these functionalities, making it easy to manage projects with many involved parties.