SNOMED CT is an organized set of medical concepts. Concepts are coded with an conceptId number and are linked to language specific terms, synonyms and definitions that are used in clinical documentation, claims billing and reporting. Concepts are linked together in logical connections to create aggregate concepts or conditions. Concepts have a network-type hierarchy where each concept can have multiple parents and multiple children.

SNOMED CT can provide the core general terminology for electronic health records (EHR). SNOMED CT supports compatible information exchange and assists in creating interoperable electronic health records - records that can be exchanged between and understood by different EHR systems. SNOMED CT codes (and terms) can be used to record clinical information about patients in electronic health records. Concepts include: clinical findings, symptoms, diagnoses, procedures, body structures, organisms and other etiologies, substances, pharmaceuticals, devices and specimens. The hierarchical categorization of all SNOMED CT terms allows for logical groupings and aggregations which facilitate and improve population reporting.

The SNOMED CT code set was created by and is maintained by SNOMED International, an international non-profit standards development organization. SNOMED International is headquartered in London, UK. SNOMED International is a trade name of the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO) which was established in 2007.

Source: https://www.snomed.org