“Whenever there’s a problem, a diagnosis or a clinical description that’s needed to be put in our electronic health records, clinicians, whether they know it or not because it’s in the software”, said the Chief Executive of Australian e-Health Research Centre, David Hansen while notifying the Computerworld Australia about the Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) and NEHTA plans regarding the healthcare software vendors.

The software will be making the transitionSNOMED CT. Around five years back, the NEHTA has decided to adopt the SNOMED CT when they started making use of standardizing electronic health information, although, its usage is not so popular up till now.

In an announcement, the CSIRO has announced about its plans to provide software’s to Australia’s National E-Health Transition Authority in order to support the transition to Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records.

In addition, Dr. David Hansen has warned about the existence of non-standard records and notified that there are several electronic systems that are not likely to make use of the SNOMED CT dictionary and attempts to use a blend of existing standard as well as local data dictionaries. Further, Dr. David Hansen claimed that the Snapper tool plays a significant role to translate terms in the existing system.

It has been reported that the National E-Health Transition Authority has approved the software from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in order to back a move about standardized dictionary of clinical terms under the spell of Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) project, launched by the Federal Government.

Sources have confirmed that the Java-based software is perfectly compatible with PCs, Macs as well as Linux whereas SNOMED CT is available as a part of the package, added Hansen while notifying that the users will be able to update it automatically.