Key requirements that drive the design, development, and maintenance of SNOMED CT are as follows. They are related to:

1. Electronic health applications (most often electronic health records or EHRs)
   • Support for effective delivery of high quality healthcare to individuals and populations
2. The terminology
3. Implementation and migration
4. The intended user communities
   • International, multilingual applicability
   • Supporting particular localities
5. National and strategic priorities

These requirements are interrelated. The design objective is to enable all user communities to realize the potential benefits. However, the needs of different user communities may vary. To meet the overall objectives, the design must consider the entire range of needs. The approach must also be scalable in order to enable extension to new user communities.