(DHHS: Washington) -- Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt recently announced that the United States will participate in an international effort to encourage more rapid development and worldwide adoption of standard clinical terminology for electronic health records. The United States is one of nine charter members of the new International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation, which has acquired Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) from the College of American Pathologists. Other charter members are from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Membership is open to all countries.

“International implementation of SNOMED CT is good for everyone engaged in developing electronic health records, and it will open up new opportunities for international collaboration in research and public health surveillance,” Secretary Leavitt says. “This use of a standard terminology will enable the use of health information across borders, facilitate public health surveillance, and support evidence-based research.”

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