Kaiser sharing translation-enabling technology

Kaiser Permanente donated its Convergent Medical Terminology (CMT) to the International Healthcare Terminology Standards Development Organisation for U.S. distribution through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) so that all health care providers -- large and small -- can benefit from the translation-enabling technology.

This donation makes the results of years of work at Kaiser Permanente available to help U.S. health professionals and hospitals achieve key meaningful use standards set forth by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Kaiser Permanente's donation, which is being provided at no charge, consists of terminology content they have already developed, a set of tools to help create and manage terminology, and processes to control the quality of terminology that is developed. CMT also includes mappings to classifications and standard vocabularies, such as the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine - Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT©) already accepted by U.S. and international health policy makers. In addition to being of immediate value to electronic health record developers and users, these resources will assist the distributed enhancement of standard vocabularies, such as SNOMED CT, to better meet U.S. and international needs. Kaiser Permanente has agreed to work with the IHTSDO, the owner of SNOMED CT, and its U.S. Member, the National Library of Medicine, to help make an internationally distributed network of terminology development a reality.