FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Shelly Spiro
703-599-5051; shelly@PharmacyHIT.org
November 15, 2016
Pharmacy Value Sets Published to Support Interoperability and Quality Measure Reporting
WASHINGTON, DC – The Pharmacy HIT Collaborative today announced publication of its initial version of SNOMED CT (Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine: Clinical Terms) value sets for pharmacy documentation. The pharmacy value sets are now accessible from the National Library of Medicine’s Value Set Authority Center (VSAC). Clinicians, administrators, and health IT professionals are encouraged to review the value sets and engage with electronic system vendors on implementation efforts.
These pharmacy value sets are designed to support standardized documentation of pharmacy services across all practice settings, regardless of which electronic system is used to capture the data. Any documentation derived from the value sets could be used to exchange clinical information between hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and other care settings or contribute to electronic clinical quality measurement calculations specified in public and private quality payment programs.
“Pharmacists, payers, and the health care industry should have a better understanding of SNOMED CT Value Sets and how it affects pharmacy. It is only a matter of time before SNOMED CT use by the pharmacy profession becomes as common as using NDC numbers to identify dispensed medications,” according to Shelly Spiro, executive director, Pharmacy HIT Collaborative. In a recent Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy news release, it was reported that over twenty-five stakeholders participated in the Pharmacy HIT Collaborative’s value set development process that generated a consensus on a standardized framework for documenting medication therapy management (MTM) services using SNOMED CT.
SNOMED CT is a coding terminology used for clinical documentation and a federally recognized standard for health information technology in the United States. SNOMED CT codes are used for patient care data, including general findings, problems, interventions, and outcomes. Codes are organized into value sets, or unique groups of codes, to aid implementation into electronic systems and support effective health information exchange and quality reporting.
The Pharmacy HIT Collaborative is a coalition of nine professional pharmacy associations and additional members representing the pharmacy profession in all matters related to health information technology.
Additional implementation resources are available on the Resource Center page of the Pharmacy HIT Collaborative website.