Ian Haywood wrote: > > Tim Churches wrote: >> David More wrote: >>> Hi Tim, >>> >>> I think the bureaucracy is all but inevitable given the fact that it is >>> American, >>> currently proprietary, IP that is involved and the SDO does not yet exist. >> Not really. In order to obtain access to SNOMED-CT in the US, all that >> you need to do is fill in a brief form downloadable from the National >> Library of Medicine web site for access to UMLS (which contain SNOMED-CT >> and a lot more), sign it and fax it back to them. It contains the usage >> agreement, which says that you can use it freely for any purpose in the >> US, but can't send copies offshore, or if you are not in the US, that >> you can use it only for study or research purposes and not in commercial >> applications which are made available to others. > > So what are we waiting for? > Why can't every GP in Australia have a "research interest" in SNOMED-CT?
SNOMED-CT has been available at no-cost for many years to non-US users as "category 3" users under the UMLS license - see clause 12.3 in http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/license.html The US National Library of Medicine (NLM), who also bring us PubMed and MEDLINE, provides this service with a minimum of fuss. For US users, SNOMED-CT obtained under the UMLS license even includes this provision: "U.S. commercial organizations may include SNOMED as obtained via the UMLS within products sold to U.S. customers." So no extra bureaucracy even if you want to redistribute SNOMED-CT embedded in a commercial application, provided that the distribution is only to US users. I strongly urge NEHTA to emulate this US model for access to SNOMED-CT here in Oz, and not to emulate the UK model, which stiffles uptake and innovation. Tim C _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
