Health Language named exclusive Global provider of training and support for IHTSDO's SNOMED mapping tools

Agreement will enhance safe health data exchange, standardization of clinical terms and interoperability of electronic health record systems worldwide

Published: 01/29/2009

DENVER, CO, USA - (HealthTech Wire / News) - Health Language, Inc. ® (HLI), the world’s leading supplier of language engine technology for medical vocabulary mapping and interoperability, announced today that it signed an agreement with the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO) to provide training and support for IHTSDO’s Workbench tools. An ever-expanding roster of countries, including IHTSDO’s 11 member nations such as Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and United States, will use the tools to map local medical terminologies to SNOMED CT (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine -- Clinical Terms), facilitating the exchange of accurate health data, standardization of medical terminologies and interoperability of clinical information systems.

IHTSDO, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based international not-for-profit association that develops and promotes the use of SNOMED CT’s standardized medical terminology, will provide the IHTSDO Workbench, a comprehensive set of terminology editing, mapping and modeling applications, to member and non-member countries at no charge.

“HLI was selected by an international team of evaluators because its services were a good fit to meet the needs of IHTSDO and its members,” said Jennifer Zelmer, Ph.D., IHTSDO’s chief executive officer. “The IHTSDO Workbench combined with training and support offered by HLI and its partners will help countries to improve health services for their citizens and accelerate health research by enabling the use and development of consistent terminology that meets international clinical standards and facilitates collaboration.”

According to George Schwend, HLI’s president and CEO, “We are looking forward to providing the global training and support that will advance IHTSDO’s mission of promoting higher quality care through broader use of accurate, reliable and standardized clinical data. HLI is pleased to partner with IHTSDO to move health systems worldwide a step closer to a common interoperability platform.”