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SNOMED CT Expo 2016
Presentation or Poster Abstract
Title: Realising the power of the SNOMED CT relationships to
enable clinical decision support
Presenter: Steve Swinsburg, Orion Health
Audience
Developers of SNOMED CT based clinical applications, health informaticians interested in clinical
decision support and reporting capabilities.
Objectives
This presentation explores recent work in enabling clinical decision support (CDS) within EHR
applications through the use of the SNOMED CT relationships. This work has enabled complex
hierarchical lookups and data matching to provide CDS between Problem Lists and Medication Lists.
Abstract
The SNOMED CT relationship data is a powerful data set. However, it can also be very complex
which means it is often underused, with vendors and implementers opting for the standard and
simple lookup/search integration rather than a rich hierarchical one.
Traversing this hierarchical data set in real time can also be very time consuming, which further
limits its use. However, understanding the relationship data structure is key to its implementation.
We have developed a set of algorithms for instantaneous traversal of the concept lineage which
enables medicinal concept discovery and search, as well as allergy recording via substance or drug
classes and considering drug class cross-reactivity.
These algorithms give us the ability to instantly compare Medication Lists and Problem Lists to
providing instantaneous clinical decision support functionality to clinicians such as duplicate
therapy checking, drug allergy reporting and drug warnings.
This presentation will give an overview of the algorithms used and their practical application for
medication management drug allergy reporting, incorporating real time clinical decision support
within an EHR setting, using data sets from both Australia and the UK.