This section provides an overview of:
The basic objective of any SNOMED CT translation is to provide accurate and unambiguous descriptions of SNOMED CT concepts in the target language.
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. SNOMED International provides
guidelines
to support countries undertaking translations.
SNOMED CT translation is an interdisciplinary collaboration which requires careful
attention to content, structure and clinical relevance. These factors are of foremost
importance in order to ensure the usability of the terminology in connection with
implementation in electronic health record systems. Both linguistic and semantic quality
must be assured.
The core SNOMED CT is not perfect and its structure and content continue to evolve.
These facts call for vigilance on the part of the translation team members who need
to review and analyses the relationships of each concept in order to elucidate the
meaning of a term within the terminological context. Looking at the preferred term
in English is not sufficient to enable accurate concept-based translation.
Close collaboration between specialists in health informatics, linguistics and terminology
is essential for the translation process. A translation based solely on linguistic,
morphological-syntactical analysis might result in a seemingly correct term which
may not adequately represent the concept in question, nor be used by healthcare professionals.
On the other hand, compliance with linguistic, systematic, and orthographic principles
is necessary in order to avoid confusion and ensure the practical applicability of
the terminology.
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 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 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 SNOMED International request submission process.
From a practical perspective, the deliverables from SNOMED CT translation include:
This approach allows the same descriptions to be used in other local variants of the language. In this case another Language Reference Set is provided indicating which descriptions contain the preferred and acceptable terms. Descriptions not referenced by a Language Reference Set are not used in that language or dialect.