The American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) Electronic Health Record Task Force (EHRTF) sponsored the AAHA Problem and Diagnosis Terms (PDT) to streamline the recording and analysis of patient medical records in veterinary hospital systems of general small animal practice, as a subset of SNOMED CT and its Veterinary Extension.
In 2017, BluePearl Veterinary Partners recognized the need for a standardized set of terms for small animal specialty practices. They funded the development of a SNOMED CT© and VetSCT© subset to fill gaps in the AAHA PDT, addressing the needs of their cardiology, dermatology, ophthalmology, and dental specialties. This subset, the SAS PDT, expanded coverage beyond general practice to include specialized care.
When AAHA ceased funding for the AAHA PDT, VTS responded to user requests by creating a unified subset to support all aspects of small animal practice. The Small Animal Problem and Diagnosis Terms (SA-PDT) now consolidates both the AAHA PDT and SAS PDT, covering general, specialty, and emergency practices.
Out of Cycle Update Available: January 1, 2025 release availableThe Center for Veterinary Terminology and Standards has been asked to move our distribution and management of the Veterinary Extension to SNOMED Distributed Services in order to make it more readily available for international user needs. While the intention was to have this migration complete before the October 2024 release, work is still ongoing. We do not have a definitive timetable for migration to SNOMED's distributed services. However, we decided it would be best for our stakeholders to go forward with an out of cycle update. See BELOW for update links and information. After the transition is complete, the Veterinary Edition of SNOMED CT (International Release plus Veterinary Extension content) will be available for browsing using the SNOMED Browser (https://browser.ihtsdotools.org). Our own browser will continue to be available here on our website as well.
New Release FilesJanuary 1, 2025
The Problem & Diagnosis Terms hava been updated to include requested concepts and descriptions and to align it with the November 1, 2024 International release of SNOMED CT© and the January 2025 release of the Veterinary Extension to SNOMED CT. To obtain a copy of this release, login to VTS (with a VTS account or your UMLS credentials) and access it via the Documents page. If you've successfully logged in and have been granted access to Diagnostic Terms download, you should see a Documents button to the left. If you have successfully logged in, but do NOT see a Documents button, then you need to request access. To do this go to "My Profile".