Clinical Terminology and Information
NEHTA established the National Clinical Terminology and Information Service (NCTIS) to develop the terminology and information products which support the e-health requirements of the Australian healthcare community.
The way clinical information is described and shared by healthcare providers is vital to improving the quality and safety of healthcare delivery and is fundamental to the success of e-health.
Imperative to describing this information is a standard clinical language or terminology. A standard clinical terminology enables the clinical descriptions used in clinical communications to be accurately recorded and consistently interpreted. A common terminology gives healthcare providers a high level of confidence in the information that they record, send and retrieve, ensuring continuity of care for patients across different times, settings and care providers.
In order for e-health information systems to be interoperable and act intelligently (i.e. decision support) they must be able to record, read and interpret clinical information which is exchanged between systems (e.g. drug names, diagnoses, pathology test results and the like).
A key task for the NCTIS is therefore to identify methods of supporting the implementation of clinical terminology and clinical information standards across the Australian healthcare community.