Using Semantic Web Technologies To Underpin The Snomed Ct Query Language

SNOMED International is working on a query language specification for SNOMED CT, which we call here SCTQL. SNOMED CT is the leading terminology for use in Electronic Health Records (EHRs). SCTQL can contribute to effective retrieval and reuse of clinical information within EHRs. This paper analyses the functional capabilities needed for SCTQL and proposes two implementations that rely on ontological representations of SNOMED CT: one based on the W3C SPARQL 1.1 query language and another based on the OWL API. The paper reports the performance and correctness of both implementations as well as highlights their benefits and drawbacks.