A key aspect of SNOMED CT implementations is how the terminology is presented to the user to select clinical ideas to represent in medical records. For each use case, a User Interface is designed, where the user can search by entering terms or where the implementer prepares a structured UI that guides the user over a controlled set of options, appropriate for the scenario. 

Good Practices

The Search and Data Entry Guide covers all the considerations for developing SNOMED CT User Interfaces. From the content of the guide, these are 5 important considerations for the development of Search and Data Entry User Interfaces:

1. The UI should be customized to the use case
   • Different UIs for point of care data entry and SNOMED CT browsing.
2. Text search should be flexible
   • Allow to search by partial matches, it should ignore the order of terms, and other normalizations could be applied in specific use cases.
3. The order of the results is important
   • Ordering the shortest matching term first is a common technique, other options may apply in special use cases, like considering the frequency of use of each result.
4. Structured data entry can be applied to support effective data entry and ensure consistent use of Concepts
   • Designing custom, structure data entry UIs where the user directly selects SNOMED CT content can simplify the use of SNOMED CT in very specific use cases.
5. Data entry should be constrained for each specific scenario
   • Different parameters like refset memberships or concept ancestors can be applied to filter the options presented to the user to adjust the content to a particular use case or clinical specialty.

SNOMED CT User Interface Examples

SNOMED International has prepared a demonstration available in: https://ihtsdo.github.io/snomed-ui-examples/.

This example simulates the user interface of a typical electronic clinical records application, allowing the user to represent diagnosis, procedures, allergies, etc. using different techniques described in the Search and Data Entry Guide.

In this example common search and data entry techniques are in place:

• The UI is customized for recording a clinical encounter
• Search supports partial matching with no order, for example, "asth alle" matches "allergic asthma"
• Results are sorted with the shorter results first, and it has an advanced feature of boosting results by prioritizing the most commonly used concepts, this can be tested by searching "diabetes" on the diagnosis field, with or without boosting enabled
• Fields are also constrained by domain, using ECLs, so searching for "appen" on the diagnosis field will match "appendicitis", and in the procedures field, will match "appendectomy"
• The UI provides a very basic form of post-coordination that allows adding a "laterality" refinement to a lateralizable procedure
• The allergies and adverse reactions data entry panel shows how a more structured data entry UI can be implemented, with fields with other constraints, select fields, etc.

The source code for this demonstration app is available in https://github.com/IHTSDO/snomed-ui-examples. 

This Demonstration Guide can help a user to go through the different components of the demonstration, explaining the rationale behind the design of the functionalities.

Other User Interface Demonstrators

Other SNOMED CT-enabled user interface demonstrators are available, as listed below.

Please note that this list of tools is provided in alphabetical order. To request the addition or removal of a tool to/from this list, please submit a request via the 'Feedback' button at the bottom of this page.