The use of SNOMED CT, 2013-2020: a literature review

Abstract

Objective: This article reviews recent literature on the use of SNOMED CT as an extension of Lee et al's 2014 review on the same topic. The Lee et al's article covered literature published from 2001-2012, and the scope of this review was 2013-2020.

Materials and methods: In line with Lee et al's methods, we searched the PubMed and Embase databases and identified 1002 articles for review, including studies from January 2013 to September 2020. The retrieved articles were categorized and analyzed according to SNOMED CT focus categories (ie, indeterminate, theoretical, pre-development, implementation, and evaluation/commodity), usage categories (eg, illustrate terminology systems theory, prospective content coverage, used to classify or code in a study, retrieve or analyze patient data, etc.), medical domains, and countries.

Results: After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, 622 articles were selected for final review. Compared to the papers published between 2001 and 2012, papers published between 2013 and 2020 revealed an increase in more mature usage of SNOMED CT, and the number of papers classified in the "implementation" and "evaluation/commodity" focus categories expanded. When analyzed by decade, papers in the "pre-development," "implementation," and "evaluation/commodity" categories were much more numerous in 2011-2020 than in 2001-2010, increasing from 169 to 293, 30 to 138, and 3 to 65, respectively.

Conclusion: Published papers in more mature usage categories have substantially increased since 2012. From 2013 to present, SNOMED CT has been increasingly implemented in more practical settings. Future research should concentrate on addressing whether SNOMED CT influences improvement in patient care.

Keywords: SNOMED CT; Unified Medical Language System; electronic health record; medical ontology; systematized nomenclature of medicine.

Figure 1.

Flow diagram of article selection process.

Figure 2.

Number of papers by focus category, comparing those included for Lee et al’s (published between 2001 and 2012) with those included for current review (published between 2013 and September 2020).

Figure 3.

Number of papers by focus category and decade (2001-2010 vs 2011-2020). The numeric data for the first decade (ie, 2001-2010) and the early two years of the second decade (ie, 2011-2012) were reproduced from Supplementary Appendix B of Lee et al’s review article.

Figure 4.

SNOMED CT research trends in U.S., France, U.K., Spain, and Australia, 2013-2020, by percentage of papers published. The y-axis represents the proportion of papers in each focus category. The maturity of research increases from “theoretical (level 1)” to “evaluation (level 4)” focus category.