Integrating Osteopathic terminology into SNOMED CT.

SNOMED CT is a controlled medical terminology which has been licensed by the National Library of Medicine and recommended as the general terminology of choice by the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics for the development of the electronic medical record. Osteopathic terminology is unique to Osteopathic practitioners and must be included in any terminology if the terminology is to meet the needs of the Osteopathic community. The Authorized Osteopathic Thesaurus was used as a resource and compared with the content of SNOMED CT. It was found that a large number of concepts which were of importance in documenting Osteopathic encounters were not included in SNOMED CT. The decision was made to integrate this content into SNOMED CT.