Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Table of Contents
1. Introduction.............................................................................................................4
2. GPS License .............................................................................................................5
3. Contents of the GPS ................................................................................................6
What the GPS does not contain........................................................................................................ 7
4. Obtaining the GPS ...................................................................................................8
5. Translating the GPS.................................................................................................9
6. Implementation Considerations ..........................................................................10
7. GPS Implementation Scenarios (Use Cases)........................................................11
Scenario #1: Clinical - Hip Replacement and Discharge to Home Care........................................ 11
Scenario #2: Enhancing Care through Digital Health Capability - Breast Cancer Treatment in a
Low- or Middle-Income Country (LMIC) ......................................................................................... 12
Scenario #3: Global Interoperability with GPS .............................................................................. 13
Scenario #4: Other Contexts ........................................................................................................... 13
8. Maintenance and Updating Considerations ........................................................14
9. Additional Resources & Contact Information ......................................................15
Date 20190901
© 2019 International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation. All rights reserved. SNOMED CT®
was originally created by the College of American Pathologists.
This document forms part of the SNOMED International Global Patient Set (GPS) release, distributed by
International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation, trading as SNOMED International, and is
subject the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License, https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Any modification of this document (including without limitation the removal or modification of this notice) is
prohibited without the express written permission of SNOMED International.
Any copy of this document that is not obtained directly from SNOMED International is not controlled by SNOMED
International, and may have been modified and may be out of date. Any recipient of this document who has
received it by other means is encouraged to obtain a copy directly from SNOMED International at SNOMED
International Global Patient Set (GPS) package Implementation Guide - September 2019.
1. Introduction
SNOMED International has introduced the Global Patient Set (GPS) to support the sharing of patient health
information coded with SNOMED CT® without the need for a SNOMED CT Affiliate license. The GPS is a managed list
of existing SNOMED CT unique identifiers, fully specified names (FSN), preferred terms in international English, and
status flags, made available at no cost to users. The GPS supports health information interoperability across care
settings, systems, organizations and national borders.
This GPS Implementation Guide provides information on downloading the GPS and considerations for its use.
2. GPS License
The GPS (specifically the set of materials included in the GPS tab-separated values file) is produced by SNOMED
International under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License, https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Additional information about this license specific to SNOMED International’s release of the GPS:
• SNOMED CT is © and ® SNOMED International. The right to maintain the GPS remains vested exclusively in
SNOMED International.
• The Licensee can redistribute the GPS.
• The Licensee can create derivatives or implementation-related products and services based on the GPS.
• The Licensee cannot claim that SNOMED International or any of its Members endorses the Licensee’s
derivative because it uses content from the GPS.
• Neither SNOMED International nor any of the contributors accept any liability for the Licensee’s use or
redistribution of the GPS.
• SNOMED CT® was originally created by the College of American Pathologists.
Without obtaining prior written permission from SNOMED International, you are expressly prohibited from using,
distributing or reproducing the SNOMED International, SNOMED CT or SNOMED GPS logo, service mark or
trademark. Please review all terms and conditions of use here.
The equivalent representation for myocardial infarction in the GPS is featured below:
id fsn pt active
6. Implementation Considerations
The GPS does not contain the full SNOMED CT terminology and therefore implementers need to consider how they
are going to incorporate the GPS into their applications and systems.
• Without the SNOMED CT taxonomy and a clinically curated set of concepts, implementers will need to
consider how to code patient data with the correct information.
• As the GPS is not a clinically curated set of concepts, SNOMED International cannot guarantee that all key
clinically relevant content is part of the GPS.
• If an implementer currently has a SNOMED CT Affiliate license and is sharing data with organizations without
an Affiliate License (but who are using the GPS), any patient-related data encoded with SNOMED identifiers
that are not in GPS should be shared using the preferred term as free text, instead of using an identifier.
• If you would like to obtain the full version of SNOMED CT through membership or an Affiliate License, please
visit the SNOMED International website .
as his type II diabetes places him at high risk for a [deep venous thrombosis]. His integrated care plan includes
referrals to a physiotherapist and a nutritionist.
The SNOMED concepts included in the care plan are those supported in the GPS. Where a concept identifier of
something in the care plan is not in the GPS, the local language preferred term is used instead of the SNOMED CT
identifier.
The home care nurse, physiotherapist and nutritionist review Paulo’s care plan using an integrated EHR application
which is not SNOMED CT enabled but refers to GPS content and free text. The care plan is followed and information
shared between the professionals as progress on Paolo’s recovery moves forward. 3 months later the team agree
that the goals set out and agreed with Paolo have been achieved and he can be discharged and returned to the care
of his GP. A discharge summary is created.
The aggressive treatment in South Africa proves to be successful. Upon discharge from Bloemfontein, a detailed
summary of her care is provided back to ‘Malillo’s district hospital, created from the GPS enabled health record.
[1] http://international-patient-summary.net/mediawiki/index.php?title=Main_Page