From 2026, standardized diagnosis codes are to be introduced in outpatient care in Austria, which poses a challenge for doctors. In the hectic daily practice routine, there is hardly any time for time-consuming searches for the right code. Coding within seconds is therefore a must.
The exchange of clinical data in Austria is to be facilitated in future by codes from SNOMED CT. SNOMED CT is the world’s most comprehensive terminology standard in the healthcare sector. SNOMED CT contains over 370,000 codes and descriptions for diseases, findings, procedures, active substances, organisms and much more. The German-language translation is managed by ELGA GmbH – as the Austrian SNOMED CT National Release Center (NRC) – in cooperation with the NRCs of Germany and Switzerland. Thanks to a license from the Federal Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection (BMASGPK), the use of SNOMED CT is free of charge.
Austria-wide cooperation
As part of a collaboration launched in 2024 with the Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation at the Medical University of Graz, ELGA GmbH is building on the preliminary work and expertise of internationally recognized terminology expert Stefan Schulz, university professor of medical informatics at the Medical University of Graz. The aim of the collaboration is the SNOMED coding of diagnostic information – initially in the outpatient sector, and in the future also in other sectors of the healthcare system.
Over the course of twelve years, Stefan Schulz and his team have collected hundreds of thousands of linguistic expressions from the medical jargon used primarily in Austria, but also in Germany and Switzerland, and assigned them to SNOMED codes using semi-automated processes. These include numerous abbreviations used in doctors’ letters and reports. This resource is now being jointly developed further as the “Graz Interface Terminology for SNOMED CT”. It is an important basis for the e-health coding service developed and operated by the BMASGPK. This is available free of charge as support for the structured recording of diagnoses. There is already a technical demo operation for software manufacturers.
A milestone in the healthcare sector
Close adjustments to the constantly evolving medical language require long-term cooperation and the use of modern technologies – including artificial intelligence – for content maintenance and quality assurance. For ELGA GmbH, the continuous involvement of the medical profession is of central importance. As a result, central concerns of the Austrian Medical Association, such as user-friendliness, the representation of medical language usage and the principle of “documenting instead of coding”, were already taken into account in the first project phases.
Stefan Schulz emphasizes: “The joint work on the introduction of SNOMED CT is a milestone for the digitalization of the Austrian healthcare system and a trend-setter for the entire German-speaking region. SNOMED CT enables fine-grained and meaning-preserving clinical documentation across system and language boundaries. The interface terminology of Med Uni Graz forms the bridge between medical jargon and an international standard that raises the quality of medical documentation to a new level. By optimizing cooperation between the various players, the healthcare system is better equipped for further challenges. The continuous maintenance and further development of these terminology systems will have a lasting impact on the digital healthcare landscape.”
Further information on SNOMED CT, current developments in Austria and research work at the Institute of Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation can be found at: snomed.org; codierservice.ehealth.gv.at; elga.gv.at; and imi.medunigraz.at/forschung
Profile: Stefan Schulz
Stefan Schulz is a trained human physician with a doctorate in theoretical medicine, has been working scientifically for over 30 years and is active in numerous international and interdisciplinary projects in the field of medical informatics. Since 2010, he has represented this field as a university professor at the Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation at the Medical University of Graz. His research focuses on the semantic modeling of medical data, the use of artificial intelligence to analyze text content in electronic patient records and the development and application of biomedical standards such as SNOMED CT.
