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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Methods Inf Med 2021; 60(S 02): e76-e88
DOI: 10.1055/s-0041-1735167
Original Article

A State-of-the Art Review of SNOMED CT Terminology Binding and Recommendations for Practice and Research

Anna Rossander
1   Department of Applied Information Technology, University of Gothenburg, Göteborg, Sweden
,
Lars Lindsköld
1   Department of Applied Information Technology, University of Gothenburg, Göteborg, Sweden
,
Agneta Ranerup
1   Department of Applied Information Technology, University of Gothenburg, Göteborg, Sweden
,
Daniel Karlsson
2   eHealth and Structured Information Unit, National Board of Health and Welfare, Stockholm, Sweden
› Author Affiliations Funding This work has been supported by Region Västra Götaland and the National Board of Health and Welfare as well as the SWEPER project under the Swedish strategic programme SWElife.
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Abstract

Background Unambiguous sharing of data requires information models and terminology in combination, but there is a lack of knowledge as to how they should be combined, leading to impaired interoperability.

Objectives To facilitate creation of guidelines for SNOMED CT terminology binding we have performed a literature review to find existing recommendations and expose knowledge gaps. The primary audience is practitioners and researchers working with terminology binding.

Methods PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched for papers containing “terminology binding,” “subset,” “map,” “information model” or “implement” and the term “SNOMED.”

Results The search yielded 616 unique papers published from 2004 to 2020, from which 55 papers were selected and analyzed inductively. Topics described in the papers include problems related to input material, SNOMED CT, information models, and lack of appropriate tools as well as recommendations regarding competence.

Conclusion Recommendations are given for practitioners and researchers. Many of the stated problems can be solved by better co-operation between domain experts and informaticians and better knowledge of SNOMED CT. Settings where these competences either work together or where staff with knowledge of both act as brokers are well equipped for terminology binding. Tooling is not thoroughly researched and might be a possible way to facilitate terminology binding.

Keywords

terminology binding - SNOMED CT - electronic health records - information models

Note

This article does not contain research involving human or animal subjects.


Authors' Contributions

A.Ro., D.K., and L.L. were equally responsible for conducting the overall literature review, including designing the search strategy and drafting the manuscript. D.K. provided domain expertise for constructing the initial search terms and acted as a third reviewer in any case of disagreement when A.Ro. and L.L. performed study selection. A.Ro. performed data extraction assisted by D.K. and L.L. A.Ra. provided valuable advice on designing the methodological approach and revised the manuscript critically. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.


Supplementary Material



Publication History

Received: 22 February 2021

Accepted: 20 May 2021

Article published online:
28 September 2021

© 2021. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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