Snomed for everyone

I’m in Geneva for the first World of Health IT conference, and I happened on some interesting news tonight. The College of American Pathologists and its Snomed International division will announce Thursday that they are giving up the proprietary nature of Snomed Clinical Terms, opening up access to everyone, with some conditions.

From what I understand—and I don’t know the whole story yet—Snomed essentially is making its July 2003 licensing agreement with the National Library of Medicine global. This may have something to do with healthcare providers having a tough time figuring out terms of Snomed licensing in contracts with software vendors. Again, though, I don’t know the whole story yet.