The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and DXC Technology have secured the contract to supply the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS) with its interoperability terminology system to ensure healthcare systems across the UK speak the same language.
Under the deal, valued at just under £10 million, according to initial tender documents[1], CSIRO will deliver its Ontoserver framework to the NHS, with the support of DXC as a managed service provider.
CSIRO e-health research centre CEO Dr David Hansen explained that healthcare organisations often use different software and terminologies, but Ontoserver has been designed to be a fast healthcare interoperability resources native terminology service that supports a number of international standard medical terminologies, such as SNOWMED CT.
"Ideally, we like to think everyone speaks the same language, but we know that's not the case," he told ZDNet.
"There's also a lot of nuances in language as well. Ontoserver will help codify some of those, and some of the extra support we have in Ontoserver is to be able to map between different terminology."
Hansen said medical terminology often differs between countries when it comes to the handling of medications.
"How each country handles the name of their drugs and the active ingredients, and the approval process. It tends to be the biggest difference. But medical terms for diseases and procedures are mostly standard internationally," he said.
NHS Digital principle data architect Nicholas Oughtibridge said standardising terminology would mean healthcare providers are able to record data once and share it across the NHS.
"Ontoserver has the potential to transform the way in which data is captured, shared, and analysed across health and care. The capabilities that Ontoserver delivers are key to enabling data from disparate systems to be safely and meaningfully exchanged between