1 Introduction

SNOMED International has introduced the Global Patient Set (GPS) to support the sharing of patient health information coded with SNOMED CT without the need for a SNOMED International license. 

The GPS is a managed list of existing SNOMED CT unique concept identifiers and their associated descriptions and will be available to all interested parties at no cost to users. The GPS supports health information interoperability across care settings, systems, organizations and national borders.  

2 Implementation

The SNOMED International GPS Implementation Guide provides information on downloading the GPS and considerations for its use.  A PDF version of the SNOMED International GPS Implementation Guide is included in the GPS release package - however to ensure that the latest version can be accessed, it's also available online:

https://confluence.ihtsdotools.org/display/RMT/SNOMED+International+Global+Patient+Set+%28GPS%29+package+Implementation+Guide+-+September+2020

3 Release content

3.1 Frequency of Release

The GPS package contains the content of a number of SNOMED CT reference sets to support a variety of general purposes.  It will be published annually.

3.2 Changes to the GPS Release content

Changes to the content of the GPS release package each cycle will reflect updates to the underlying terminology, including concept inactivations and additions.  For this reason, details of changes made to this release can be found in the Release Notes for the underlying SNOMED CT reference sets that are used to compile the GPS.

From the July 2020 GPS Release onwards, SNOMED International will also be publishing an RF2 formatted package containing the GPS refset content.  This Refset will follow normal RF2 conventions, and will therefore retain a full historical audit trail of all changes to the GPS refset from that point onwards.

3.3 Technical Notes

The GPS Freeset is released in TSV (Tab Separated Values) file format, with the following naming convention:

• SnomedINTL_GPSRelease_PRODUCTION_[date and time stamp].zip

The GPS RF2 Refset is released in RF2 file format, with the following naming convention:

• SnomedCT_GPS_PRODUCTION_[date and time stamp].zip

Please be aware that the RF2 refset contains records with the GPS specific moduleID (890195008) + refsetID (787778008) allocated to them all, regardless of the concepts origin in the various GPS feeder refsets.  This is because there are several thousand concepts that exist across multiple feeder refsets, and therefore it would prove confusing from a user-perspective to choose one module/refset combination over another without any reason.

3.3 COVID-19

SNOMED CT concepts have been created and added to the GPS so that these codes are globally available to all implementers. Details on the SNOMED CT concepts included can be found here - http://snomed.org/covid-19

4 Obtaining the GPS package

The GPS is downloadable from the following page on the SNOMED International website:

http://www.snomed.org/snomed-international/learn-more/global-patient-set

If you would like to obtain the full version of SNOMED CT through membership or an affiliate license, please visit

https://www.snomed.org/snomed-ct/get-snomed