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Unified Medical Language System® (UMLS®)

Kaiser Permanente Opens Access to CMT to Support HHS Health IT Goals
Frequently Asked Questions

What is CMT?

How was CMT developed?

Has CMT been tested? How has it been used?

Is there a distinct and novel terminology standard that Kaiser Permanente intends to preserve with this CMT donation?

Why is Kaiser Permanente making CMT publicly available now?

Will CMT be useful outside of Kaiser Permanente?

How will transferring CMT benefit Kaiser Permanente?

How will Kaiser Permanente make CMT available?

What is the IHTSDO and why is Kaiser Permanente transferring ownership of CMT content and vocabulary tools to it?

Why is the National Library of Medicine involved and what is its role in making CMT available?

How can the CMT donation help health care providers meet meaningful use standards?

How can HIT software vendors and health care delivery organizations take advantage of this opportunity and implement the terminology in their own HIT systems, including EHRs?

What happens next?

What is the significance of this donation for U.S. health care?

  1. Facilitates adoption and use of EHRs that will improve caregivers' decisions and patients' outcomes.
  2. Reduces current duplicative efforts (by many vendors and health care institutions) to develop and link clinician- and patient-friendly terminology to underlying standards.
  3. Gives smaller EHR vendors and clinician practices that lack the resources to support vocabulary development access to high quality clinician- and patient-friendly terminology.

Last Reviewed: October 15, 2010