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SNOMED CT is a multinational, multilingual terminology. It has a built-in framework to manage different languages and dialects. Today, SNOMED CT is available in several languages, including US English, UK English, Spanish, Danish and Swedish, and more translations are continuously being done by member countries.
The goal of any SNOMED CT translation is to provide accurate representations of SNOMED CT concepts in a way that is understandable, usable, and safe. Translations must be concept-based, as term-to-term translations may yield literal expressions that are often meaningless. Instead, the translator analyses each concept based on the position within the hierarchy, the descriptions, and relationships to other concepts before deciding on the most meaningful translation of a concept. IHTSDO SNOMED International provides guidelines to support countries undertaking translations.
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It is crucial that those involved in the translation, verification, validation, and approval processes are familiar with the terminological principles on which SNOMED CT is based. It is equally important that they comply with IHTSDO SNOMED International Style Guides and that they are conscious of issues such as the choice of lexical variant, term requirements, translation techniques, and the importance of ensuring linguistic consistency.
Additionally, it is important that those involved in the translation process are aware that sometimes, their inability to understand a given term or concept may be caused not by their own lack on insight, but actually by a mistake or an ambiguity in the core terminology (international release) that needs to be corrected. SNOMED CT undergoes constant improvement, mistakes are corrected, and ambiguities are addressed. To ensure this constant enhancement of SNOMED CT, any translation team should register questions, comments or suggestions and forward these to the IHTSDO SNOMED International in order to avoid spending extra time on unsolvable issues and at the same time contribute to discovering any mistakes and ambiguities. Currently, questions and remarks from the translation teams are dealt with by the IHTSDO SNOMED International request submission process.
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