| Jack Bowie |
Apelon, Inc. |
VP,
Sales & Marketing |
jbowie@
apelon.com
|
(203)
431-2530 Opt. 1, ext. 150 |
| Sandy Cummings |
ARiA Marketing, Inc. |
Vice President |
scummings@
ariamarketing.com |
(617) 332-9999, ext. 210 |
PUBLIC BROWSER FOR HEALTHCARE TERMINOLOGIES
Web Application by Apelon Will Speed Adoption of SNOMED CT
and other National Standard Healthcare Terminologies
RIDGEFIELD, CT – May 6, 2004 – Apelon,
Inc., provider of healthcare terminology solutions, today announced
a free, Web-based browser for national standard terminologies. The
browser, which will provide access to SNOMED Clinical Terms® (SNOMED
CT®) and other leading healthcare terminologies, will advance
the knowledge and application of these important national resources
for improving healthcare results.
Leading public and private sector groups have urged the use of standard
clinical terminology as a critical step toward improving the nation’s
healthcare system through the better application of information technology.
Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Tommy Thompson announced
in July 2003 an agreement that made SNOMED CT available to U.S. users
at no cost through the National Library of Medicine’s Unified
Medical Language System® (UMLS®) Metathesaurus®. The
2004AA version of the UMLS, which the National Library of Medicine
announced today, is the first release to include SNOMED CT.
The UMLS is a comprehensive database consisting of over 100 different
terminologies, encompassing the leading vocabularies, classifications,
code sets and lists of terms used in healthcare and biomedical research.
Apelon has assisted the National Library of Medicine in the development
and maintenance of the UMLS Metathesaurus for the past 16 years and
has intimate knowledge of its structure and content. More information
about the UMLS can be found at http://umlsinfo.nlm.nih.gov.
The new browser will draw from the UMLS the key national terminologies
identified by HHS and the National Health Information Infrastructure
(NHII) and Consolidated Health Informatics (CHI) initiatives as part
of a portfolio of clinical vocabularies and messaging standards that
will enable healthcare enterprises to “speak the same language”.
Terminologies included in the browser subset are SNOMED CT, CPT,
ICD-9-CM, RxNorm, NDF-RT, LOINC, HL7 and MeSH.
“Apelon hopes that the availability of this browser will hasten
the practical use of SNOMED,” said Apelon President Stephen
Coady. “When applications such as electronic medical records
use structured vocabularies such as SNOMED, the improved consistency
in recording, reporting and analyzing healthcare information will
have dramatic financial savings and concurrent improvements in care
outcomes.”
The browser, which will be available without charge later in May
to all U.S.-based employees of U.S. government agencies, is built
on Apelon’s high-performance Distributed Terminology System
(DTS) vocabulary server. The DTS is currently in use by leading organizations
such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Eclipsys,
Kaiser Permanente, Motorola, the National Cancer Institute, the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Department of Veterans
Affairs for managing and deploying standard terminologies. Further
information about the Apelon browser, click
here.
“Government agencies have been leading the adoption of standardized
terminologies, yet many of these terminologies are difficult to obtain
and evaluate,” said Mark Tuttle, Vice President of Apelon,
speaking at HHS Sec. Thompson’s Secretarial Summit on Health
Care IT. “We are making this browser available to accelerate
the adoption process, creating a climate in which standardized terminologies
become a widespread, commonly recognized healthcare practice.” Tuttle
was one of over 100 leaders in the area of health information technology
invited by Sec. Thompson to participate in his IT Summit in Washington
on May 6.
This image shows a sample screen from the UMLS browser. A list of
included terminologies is on the left, with details of one SNOMED
CT concept on the right. Shown are key concept attributes such as
synonyms, code identifiers, semantic types, definitions, and links
to other terminologies such as ICD-9-CM.
About Apelon
Apelon is the largest provider of medical terminology software and
solutions. Organizations use Apelon software to improve the quality,
comparability and accessibility of clinical and other information.
Apelon offers terminology development and maintenance software,
run time vocabulary servers, and components for concept-based indexing,
clinical guideline development, and code set management. Please
visit www.Apelon.com for additional information.
Copyright © Apelon,
Inc.
Apelon,
Inc., 100 Danbury Road, Ridgefield, CT 06877
Voice: 203-431-2530 Fax: 203-431-2523
For comments on this
site, contact webmaster@apelon.com.
