Dedalus to deliver solution for the Netherlands National Terminology Services

Milan, 2023 September 21: Nictiz, the Dutch national competence centre for digital information management in healthcare are working with Dedalus and CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency to deliver their terminology solution. This solution will enable mapping codes between different organisations to be faster and easier.  

Nictiz develops and maintains national standards for the exchange of healthcare information and is also the national release centre for SNOMED CT in the Netherlands. In order to make healthcare in the Netherlands future-proof, a National Health Information Strategy was established.  As part of that strategy, they needed a way to centralise knowledge and allow users to easily find and implement data standards.  

The FHIR-compliant terminology server maps national and local codes helping to ensure consistency when sharing and reusing recorded data. Through the Terminology Service Nictiz will create a “one stop shop” for standard terminology in the Netherlands and move further towards standardised data and interoperability across organisations.   

Nictiz established the National Terminology Server (NTS) to help software suppliers and data scientists keep international and national terminology content such as SNOMED and the Dutch Labcodeset up to date. The NTS makes it easier to implement standards that are necessary to achieve a ‘unity of language’. 

Being FHIR® conformant the Terminology Server ensures data is captured, shared, and analysed in a standardised way. For example, international terminologies and classifications such as SNOMED and LOINC, and national terminologies such as the NHG tables, are translated into standardised FHIR resources that can then be used and shared across the health and care ecosystem.  

Chantal Schiltmeijer, technical implementation advisor Nictiz said: 

“Working with Dedalus to deliver a solution based on our National Terminology Services will drive greater adoption of standard terminology across all our health and care settings and it gives us a secure, reliable and robust environment that is fully managed.  

The National Terminology Server (NTS) is far more than a standard FHIR-server and makes it easier for systems to use the same code systems, but without all the development effort – that’s where the “magic” of this technology happens.” 

The terminology server provides consistent and unambiguous access to any terminology or classification it contains, enabling the sharing and reuse of registered data more easily. Local codes are loaded and mapped (translated into) national codes or other local or system codes. 

The server is being used for validating and summarising code systems which is beneficial for ensuring data consistency.  It eliminates the need for more and more applications to manually update systems with content downloaded from the Member Licensing and Distribution Service (MLDS) or other sources, removing barriers to implementing terminology. Updates can be made in real time or synchronized on request. 

Dedalus has successfully delivered the CSIRO Terminology server, as a fully managed solution and services in the UK and are the National provider to NHS England and NHS Scotland.    A recently signed extended partnership agreement between Dedalus and CSIRO means that organisations and healthcare economies globally can benefit from the same partnership and technology. 

Hans Vandewyngaerde, Regional Managing Director International from Dedalus, said: ‘we are seeing healthcare organisations across the world trying to address the challenge of harnessing data that is coded in different ways. We are delighted to be bringing our experience of terminology services to the Netherlands and to be helping them in their vision to maximise the value of the country’s healthcare data.” 

ABOUT DEDALUS  

Dedalus Group is the leading healthcare and diagnostic software provider in Europe, supporting globally the digital transformation of 6700 Healthcare organisations and 5700 Labs and Diagnostic Centres worldwide, processing its solutions for more than 540 million of population worldwide.  Dedalus’ offer supports the whole continuum of care, offering open standards-based solutions serving each actor of the Healthcare Ecosystem to provide better care in a healthier planet. Life Flows through our software.  

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