FDA forges ahead with e-Health initiative
ROCKVILLE, Md. The Food and Drug Administration has adopted a standard computerized medical vocabulary system to be used in electronically coding important terms, the agency said in a press release.
The move will allow healthcare professional nationwide electronically to access and share critical health and treatment information more easily and efficiently, the release said.
Specifically, the FDA is adopting the Problem List subset of the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED) for use in the electronic labeling initiative for prescription drug products. The use of SNOMED for medical product labeling will improve the domestic exchange of product information in FDA-approved package inserts, the release said. The idea is that SNOMED provides one code for each term for a particular disease or condition, the FDA said.
The new labeling format will be integrated into FDAs other e-Health efforts through a variety of ongoing initiatives, the release said.