Why SNOMED CT Fails to Succeed. A Medical Perspective on Health Informatics.

This paper addresses the lack of evidence-based Health informatics, using SNOMED CT as an example. After 60 years, there is still no evidence that SNOMED CT provides benefits to individual patients and no evidence that it can replace the medical languag safely. The terminology assumes that medical concepts are universal, stable and autonomous. This does not apply to the clinical understanding of diseases and diagnoses as found in evidence-based medicine, possibly explaining the lack of success. SNOMED CT should be used with caution and not replace professional languages in clinical work without evidence.