ASSESS CT

ASSESS CT contributed to better semantic interoperability of eHealth services in Europe, in order to optimise care and minimise harm in the delivery of care. In a joint one-year effort, the ASSESS CT consortium investigated the fitness of the clinical terminology SNOMED CT as a potential standard for EU-wide eHealth deployments, scrutinising clinical, technical, financial, and organisational aspects. Unbiased towards SNOMED CT adoption, the ASSESS CT project employed established evaluation approaches from social science. It scrutinised adoption against two alternative scenarios: abstaining from actions at the EU level, or devising an EU-wide semantic interoperability framework without SNOMED CT. ASSESS CT reviewed the current state of SNOMED CT through surveys and focus groups, regarding its use by IHTSDO members and the fulfilment of semantic interoperability use cases, the relationship with EU-wide recommendations, known technical and organisational drawbacks, and maintenance of the terminology.