In addition to providing the features already described in this section, SNOMED CT also offers a number of additional benefits for the provision of analytics including:

• SNOMED CT allows clinical data to be recorded at an appropriate level of detail, and then queried at either the same level or a less detailed level of detail;
• SNOMED CT's broad coverage can enable queries across data captured within different disciplines, specialties and domain areas;
• SNOMED CT provides a robust versioning mechanism, which helps to manage queries over longitudinal health records;
• SNOMED CT is international, which enables queries, decision support rules and code system maps to be shared and reused between countries;
• SNOMED CT includes localization mechanisms, which allow the same query to be applied to data from different countries, dialects, regions and applications;
• SNOMED International provides maps between SNOMED CT and other international coding systems and classifications, including LOINC (Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes) and ICD (International Classification of Diseases, both ICD-10 and ICD-9-CM). This enables the additional benefits of these other specialized standards to be integrated with the use of SNOMED CT.

Using SNOMED CT to support analytics services can also enable the following benefits:

• Enhancing the care of individual patients by supporting:
  • Retrieval of appropriate information for clinical care – e.g. for a clinical dashboard
  • Guideline and decision support integration
  • Retrospective searches for patterns requiring follow-up
• Enhancing the care of populations by supporting:
  • Epidemiology monitoring and reporting
  • Research into the causes and management of diseases
  • Identification of patient groups for clinical research or specialized healthcare programs
• Providing cost-effective delivery of care by supporting:
  • Guidelines to minimize risk of costly errors
  • Reducing duplication of investigations and interventions
  • Auditing the delivery of clinical services
  • Planning service delivery based on emerging health trends