Wolters Kluwer Health Adds SNOMED-CT Mapping File to Medical Conditions Master Database.

PHILADELPHIA -- Core Terminology Provides Common Language for Electronic Medical Records across Various Terminology Platforms

Wolters Kluwer Health, the industry-leading drug and disease database and healthcare information provider, today announced the addition of the SNOMED Clinical Terms(R) mapping file to its Medical Conditions Master Database. SNOMED-CT's core terminology provides a common language that enables a consistent way of capturing, sharing and aggregating health data across specialties and sites of care, making healthcare knowledge more usable and accessible. In addition, it will enhance the accuracy and ease of e-prescribing through the Medical Conditions Master Database, reducing errors and ensuring patient safety.

With the addition of the SNOMED-CT mapping file, current and future database users will have the ability to link pharmaceutical, pathological and clinical condition coding using the SNOMED-CT clinical vocabulary, and to translate between SNOMED-CT and other terminology languages. This is critically important since the SNOMED-CT terminology is becoming the industry standard nationally and internationally as healthcare providers continue their transition toward electronic medical records.

"We are extremely pleased to be able to offer our customers the SNOMED-CT terminology as an addition to their existing Medical Conditions Master Database," said Ken Killion, CEO of Wolters Kluwer Health's Clinical Tools business unit. "This will provide our customers with the flexibility they need to translate medical condition codes across a variety of platforms."

SNOMED-CT's controlled healthcare terminology includes comprehensive coverage of diseases, clinical findings, therapies, procedures and outcomes. SNOMED-CT is owned and maintained by SNOMED international, a division of the College of American Pathologists. It provides the core general terminology for an electronic health record (EHR), containing more than 357,000 concepts with unique meanings and formal logic-based definitions organized into hierarchies, and is considered to be the most comprehensive multilingual clinical reference terminology available globally.

Wolters Kluwer Health's Medical Conditions Master Database provides medical condition names to identify drug indications, adverse drug effects, precautions and patient populations (i.e., those population "subsets" that are unique by age, gender, race, lifestyle risk factor or medical condition) that can be used to identify data restrictions and special conditions. It is used in conjunction with Medi-Span's clinical databases, including Adverse Drug Effects Database, Drug Indications Database, Drug-Lab Conflict Database and Precautions Database.

The SNOMED-CT mapping data will also be added to the Medi-Span's Drug Information Bridge (DIB) in the near future.

About Wolters Kluwer Health

Wolters Kluwer Health is a leading provider of information for professionals and students in medicine, nursing, allied health, pharmacy and the pharmaceutical industry. It is part of Wolters Kluwer nv, Amsterdam, an international legal, tax, business, education and health information services company with annual sales (2003) of EUR 3.4 billion. The Clinical Tools business unit offers industry-leading intellectual property, next-generation integrated drug and disease databases and point-of-care information tools for healthcare professionals. These tools aid in disease management, error reduction, workflow improvements, and more effective patient management and are used in thousands of hospitals, pharmacies, and physician offices. The business unit includes the Medi-Span, Facts and Comparisons, Clin-eguide and SKOLAR brands. Other major brands of Wolters Kluwer Health include traditional publishers of medical and drug reference tools and textbooks, such as Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; electronic information providers, such as Ovid Technologies; and pharmaceutical information provider Adis International. www.wkhealth.com.