[healthcare-wg] International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO) Open Sources Health Terminology Workbench

[Ed Dodds]

Original PDF at
<http://www.ihtsdo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Docs_01/Press_Releases/Workbenc
h_Open_Sourcing_Press_Release_December_2009_final.pdf>
http://www.ihtsdo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Docs_01/Press_Releases/Workbench
_Open_Sourcing_Press_Release_December_2009_final.pdf

Accelerates Global Collaboration to Develop and Use Shared Toolset 

Copenhagen, Denmark: December 17, 2009 - The International Health
Terminology Standards Development Organisation announced today that it is
making source code for the IHTSDO Workbench, including tools to develop,
maintain, and facilitate the use of SNOMED CT, freely available under an
Apache2 open source agreement. IHTSDO will also make a number of seats on
the collaborative web-based environment used to host the Workbench available
free of charge to open source developers. 

"Open sourcing the IHTSDO Workbench will make it easier for developers from
around the world to work together to further develop these tools," said John
Gutai, IHTSDO's chief technical architect. "It also means that organizations
and standards bodies from around the world can use the same tools to
maintain their own terminologies and coding systems, leveraging the
investment that IHTSDO and its Members have made." 

IHTSDO Workbench Includes Terminology Editing, Browsing, and Other
Applications 

The IHTSDO Workbench source code includes a set of tools that allow users to
author terminology, map terminology to other code sets, undertake workflow
and process automation, search/browse terminology, and classify terminology
(enabling reasoning over the SNOMED CT terminology). Workbench users can
work independently or can collaborate on terminology editing, management, or
other tasks. In addition, IHTSDO is making non-clinical meta-data describing
the structure of SNOMED CT available under an Apache2 agreement. 

IHTSDO intends to add additional modules to the Workbench over time and to
encourage partners to build and share complementary tools. Developers will
be able to contribute to the progress of the Workbench itself and
collaboration facilities will be made available to open source contributors
who wish to assist with maintenance and enhancements to the source code. 

"Already IHTSDO and a number of its Members are using the Workbench to
develop, maintain, and produce terminology resources," Ted Cizadlo, Chair of
the IHTSDO Technical Committee. "Standardized clinical terminology is a key
building block for the safe, accurate, and effective exchange of health
information, and open sourcing the IHTSDO Workbench means that even more
experts from around the world can join this collaborative effort." 

The IHTSDO Workbench is part of IHTSDO's on-going efforts to enable broader
access to, and use of, standardized clinical terminologies worldwide.
Already, fourteen countries have joined together to support the on-going
development and maintenance of SNOMED CT and related standards, sharing the
costs on a sliding scale based on national income and making the standards
freely available in their jurisdictions. IHTSDO also offers free access to
SNOMED CT in countries that are not yet members for qualifying research
projects and on humanitarian or charitable grounds, as well as in countries
with low income economies. 

About International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation
(IHTSDO) 

The IHTSDO (International Health Terminology Standards Development
Organisation) and its Members seek to improve the health of humankind by
fostering the development and use of suitable standardized clinical
terminologies, notably SNOMED CT, in order to support the safe, accurate,
and effective exchange of health information. The IHTSDO is an international
organisation, established as a Danish not-for-profit association. 

The IHTSDO Workbench source code is available through the following URL:
http://csfe.aceworkspace.net/sf/projects/ihtsdo_workbench. For more
information about how to access this site, please email Berit Jensen at bje
(at) ihtsdo.org, providing the following contact information: name,
organization, country, and email address. To ensure a quick reply, please
use "a request for access to the IHTSDO Workbench source code" as the
subject line of your email. Thank you. 

About SNOMED CT 

SNOMED Clinical TermsT (SNOMED CTT) is a standardized terminology that can
be used as the foundation for electronic health records and other
applications. For example, different clinicians often use different terms to
describe the same concept. SNOMED CT contains more than 310,000 unique
concepts and more than 1.3 million links or relationships between them that
ensure that this information is captured consistently, accurately, and
reliably across the health system. The terminology is used in more than
forty countries around the world. SNOMED CT was originally created by the
College of American Pathologists by combining SNOMED RT and a computer-based
nomenclature and classification known as Clinical Terms Version 3, formerly
known as Read Codes Version 3, which was created on behalf of the UK
Department of Health and is Crown copyright. 

Media Contacts: 

Jennifer Zelmer 

IHTSDO 

media at ihtsdo.org 

+45 3644 8736 

SNOMED, SNOMED CT, and IHTSDO are trademarks of the International Health
Terminology Standards Development Organisation. All other trademarks used in
this document are the property of their respective owners. 

 
Ed Dodds
Communication Strategist, Web Developer, Writer
 <mailto:dodds at conmergence.com> dodds at conmergence.com
(615) 657-9359
collaboration, communication, convergence
Conmergence.com
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