Belgium

The terminology Centre of the Federal Public Service Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment manages, coordinates, facilitates and promotes the use of terminology in Belgian healthcare.

The multidisciplinary team, which is part of the Standards Unit within the Data and Policy Information Department of the Directorate-General for Healthcare, consists of profiles with diverse backgrounds: medical specialists, terminologists, ICT specialists and linguists. Together, they take care of the maintenance, support and release of various terminological standards in Belgium, including SNOMED CT®. These standards are crucial for quality healthcare because they help ensure that healthcare information is recorded and shared unambiguously and only once.

Acting as the SNOMED National Release Centre (NRC) of Belgium, the Terminology Centre is responsible for distributing and managing SNOMED CT in Belgium. It also produces translations of the terminology in Dutch and French. The first Belgian SNOMED CT release dates back from March 2018. In the meantime, the content of the Belgian language refset has increased to nearly 580.000 Dutch and 250.000 French validated translations. In terms of coverage, the current Belgian extension contains validated Dutch descriptions for almost 280.000 concepts and validated French descriptions for almost 170.000 concepts. Every six months, a new release is published and made available via MLDS.

More information about SNOMED CT in Belgium can be accessed

at: https://apps.health.belgium.be/ (Dutch and French only)

Affiliated licenses can be obtained at https://mlds.ihtsdotools.org/#/landing/BE