Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) News
UMLS® Terminology Services (UTS)
New SNOMED CT® Menu
All SNOMED CT-related items are now also available from the new SNOMED CT menu of the UTS. This menu includes links for the SNOMED CT homepage, related downloads, browser, and subsets. The other menus still include SNOMED CT options, as appropriate; e.g., the Downloads menu retains links to the SNOMED CT files.
Downloads
SNOMED CT Downloads
The January 2011 International Release of SNOMED CT and the updated CORE Problem List Subset are available from both the SNOMED CT and Downloads menus of the UTS.
US Extension to SNOMED CT
The first version of the US Extension to SNOMED CT is now available from both the SNOMED CT and Downloads menus of the UTS. The US Extension is a listing of the concepts, descriptions, relationships, and their history for terminology content accepted by the National Library of Medicine® (NLM®) as a formal extension to the SNOMED CT International Release.
The purpose of the US Extension is to define terminology content that is supported by a clinical use case but does not currently conform to the editorial policies or content model of SNOMED CT; or for content that is needed in advance of the next International Release of SNOMED CT.
The aim of the US Extension is to facilitate the use of SNOMED CT as the primary coding terminology for clinical information in electronic health records, research databases and clinical trials databases, except in the domains of medications and tests, which are covered by RxNorm and LOINC®.
The US Extension to SNOMED CT is distributed as a set of five data files corresponding to the RF1 release format of SNOMED CT. The five files included in the release are:
- Concepts
- Descriptions
- Relationships
- ComponentHistory
- References
Convergent Medical Terminology (CMT)
The CMT developed by Kaiser Permanente is now available from both the SNOMED CT and Download menus of the UTS. CMT is now available through the IHTSDO as a donation of the terminology content, tooling, and maintenance processes from Kaiser Permanente. It is available through NLM to UMLS Metathesaurus® licensees.
CMT is a set of clinician and patient friendly terminology, linked to US and international interoperability standards, and related vocabulary development tools and utilities. It has grown to over 75,000 concepts. For more information, see Kaiser Permanente Opens Access to CMT to Support HHS Health IT Goals Frequently Asked Questions.
Lexical Tools, 2011 Release
The 2011 version of the Lexical Tools is available on the SPECIALIST NLP Tools Web site. See the Release Notes and What Is New Web pages information about the release.
Training and Outreach
New UMLS Quick Start Guide
The UMLS team has created a UMLS Quick Start Guide. This Web page provides a brief overview of the UMLS and includes links to more information.
New MetamorphoSys and RRF Browser Quick Tours
Ten new Quick Tours for users of MetamorphoSys and the RRF Browser are available from the Quick Tours homepage. UMLS Quick tours are brief animated tutorials with audio and provide instructions on using UMLS-related products and services.
The MetamorphoSys Quick Tours cover:
- Creating a database load script
- Creating a default subset
- Creating a SNOMED CT only subset
- Creating an English only subset
The RRF Browser Quick Tours cover:
- Viewing clusters
- Finding a code from a CUI
- Highlighting search results
- Searching by code
- Limiting a search by source
- Using the "Refine Search By" feature
The UMLS team welcomes suggestions for new Quick Tours. E-mail suggestions to Contact NLM with the subject "UMLS Quick Tour Suggestions."
New UTS Fact Sheet
The new UMLS Terminology Services Fact Sheet (UTS) is available on the NLM Web site. The new Fact Sheet replaces the older UMLSKS Fact Sheet. The UMLS team is also updating other Fact Sheets in the UMLS series.
UMLS Community: New Microsoft SQL Server Load Scripts
The UMLS Community Web page now has two Microsoft SQL Server load scripts for Metathesaurus RRF files and for Semantic Network files.
Webcasts: Call for Topic Suggestions
The UMLS team welcomes suggestions for topics and expert speakers for the 2011 Webcast schedule. E-mail suggestions to Contact NLM with the subject "UMLS Webcast Suggestions."
2011AA Release
The 2011AA UMLS will be released in May 2011. It will include new ICD-10-PCS and ICD-9-CM bidirectional mappings.
Wilder V. Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) News. NLM Tech Bull. 2011 Mar-Apr;(379):e14.
