November 25, 2021

One step closer to interoperability: Applying SNOMED CT’s engine to the International Patient Summary

In 2022, SNOMED International will extend the core of SNOMED CT’s structured clinical terminology to deliver an open, standalone sub-ontology to support the scope of content within the International Patient Summary (IPS) under a Creative Commons license.

London, United Kingdom, Nov. 25, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — At SNOMED International’s recent October Business Meetings held in London, the organization’s governance bodies enacted a decision to extend the core of SNOMED CT’s structured clinical terminology to deliver an open, standalone sub-ontology to support the scope of content within the International Patient Summary (IPS.)

The IPS is an electronic health record extract containing essential healthcare information for use in the unscheduled, cross-border care scenario, as well as for local, regional and other care scenarios. It is a minimal, non-exhaustive set of data elements defined by ISO/EN 17269 and delivered by HL7 in both CDA and FHIR using a curated set of SNOMED CT terms.

There is a groundswell of support across all health sectors to increase the portability and usability of patient information for the purpose of safe health care delivery. In 2019, SNOMED International and HL7 International announced the formalization of a license agreement in which a relevant ‘Free for Use’ Set of SNOMED CT coded concepts would be used within the HL7 IPS. Most recently, we watched as G7 leaders collaborated to release a communique on the dire need to progress a global health interoperability agenda. IBM offers a working definition of interoperability as “the timely and secure access, integration and use of electronic health data so that it can be used to optimize health outcomes for individuals and populations.” The G7 communique, which highlighted the importance of enabling digital healthcare systems worldwide to work together seamlessly as patients move between providers, facilities and even countries, is an impactful statement that rippled throughout the global health community. A charge taken up by the Global Digital Health Partnership, it is one SNOMED International is eager to support.

Embracing a collaborative approach, “SNOMED International has been pleased to continue to work with HL7 International and partners across Europe and beyond to define SNOMED CT content for use in the International Patient Summary,” offered SNOMED International Management Board Chair, Joanne Burns.

Continuing to act in the spirit of the IPS Freeset, SNOMED International has committed to create and release an openly available IPS sub-ontology in the first half of 2022 to enhance the existing cross border movement of information, and ultimately health system interoperability. Unlike SNOMED International’s Global Patient Set, a flat list of SNOMED CT codes and terms, an IPS sub-ontology will provide implementers with a product that can be used in healthcare solutions using the power of SNOMED CT through its query language and hierarchies for the specified scope. Use of the IPS sub-ontology will allow for more effective use of clinical data analytics and decision support, and for Artificial Intelligence applications.

Alex Elias, Chair of SNOMED International’s General Assembly, the organization’s Member governance body, has observed a significant increase in discussion regarding the IPS. “2021 has seen increased interest by governments and Health and Care organizations globally for implementing the IPS to enhance timely cross border health information flow and interoperability. This has been a primary driver in SNOMED International supporting this recent initiative to make the IPS sub-ontology openly available with SNOMED CT content.“

An organization with an extensive history and active program of collaboration, SNOMED International CEO, Don Sweete, has played a pivotal role in positioning the IPS sub-ontology as a ‘soon to be achieved’ reality. “As the G7 Health Ministers recently indicated, the importance of enabling digital healthcare systems worldwide to work together seamlessly so patients don’t suffer as they move between providers, facilities and even countries is a sentiment that has rippled throughout the global health community”, offered Sweete. He went on to state that, “continued work with fellow health standards development, national, clinical and technical entities, SNOMED International will dedicate resources to achieve the goal of digital health interoperability.” Sweete added, “equipping the IPS, already one of the best examples of international collaboration among standards bodies, with the full capability of SNOMED CT’s ontological design is a significant action that we can contribute to achieving health information access gains for patients.”

Over the coming months, SNOMED International is formalizing the steps and due diligence required to make the IPS sub-ontology available for broad release. Throughout this period, SNOMED International will continue to define the IPS sub-ontology, from content through to its release and maintenance approach for launch in the first half of 2022.

Visit SNOMED International’s IPS Sub-Ontology information page or subscribe to the organization’s news service to learn more as this initiative progresses. For additional information, contact info@snomed.org.

About SNOMED International

SNOMED International is a not-for-profit organization that owns and develops SNOMED CT, the world’s most comprehensive healthcare terminology product. We play an essential role in improving the health of humankind by determining standards for a codified language that represents groups of clinical terms. This enables healthcare information to be exchanged globally for the benefit of patients and other stakeholders. We are committed to the rigorous evolution of our products and services, to deliver continuous innovation for the global healthcare community. SNOMED International is the trading name of the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation.

www.snomed.org

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SNOMED CT: The global language of healthcare

Kelly Kuru
SNOMED International
comms@snomed.org

November 25, 2021November 26, 2021

Ethiopia Warns US Against Spreading False Information on War

ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopia’s government has asked the United States to stop spreading what it considers falsehoods against the country, the state minister of communication Kebede Dessisa said Thursday, after the State Department issued an alert about potential “terrorist attacks.”

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and rebellious forces from the Tigray region in the north have been fighting for more than a year, in a conflict that has killed thousands and displaced millions in Africa’s second most populous nation.

This week, the Irish government said Ethiopia had expelled four of six Irish diplomats from the country because of Ireland’s stance on the conflict. Spokespeople for the Ethiopian government also have warned against unnamed external threats and repeatedly criticized Western governments for what they say is inaccurate coverage of the war.

Kebede, the state minister of communication, was quoted by state broadcaster EBC as telling a news conference the U.S. government should refrain from disseminating “shameful fake news and defamation regarding Ethiopia.”

He referred to a statement Wednesday on Twitter by the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa that urged its citizens to maintain a high level of vigilance due to “the ongoing possibility of terrorist attacks in Ethiopia.”

Earlier this month, tens of thousands of Ethiopians lied in the capital to support the government, where they denounced the United States for alleged interference in Ethiopia’s internal affairs. Washington has urged its citizens to leave Ethiopia immediately while the security situation still permits.

On Thursday, dozens of protesters took their anger to the U.S. Embassy in the city, where they displayed banners reading “Interference is Undemocratic” and “Truth Wins.”

Asked for comment, a U.S. Embassy official said the safety of U.S. citizens abroad is one of the highest priorities of the State Department, adding: “We continue to urge U.S. citizens in Ethiopia to depart now using commercially available flight options.”

Tigrayan forces and their allies have threatened to march on the capital Addis Ababa. They also have been fighting fiercely to try to cut a transport corridor linking landlocked Ethiopia with the region’s main port Djibouti.

On Tuesday, U.S. Special Envoy Jeffrey Feltman warned of an “alarming” increase in military operations and said both Abiy and the Tigrayan forces seem to believe they are on the cusp of military victory.

Source: Voice of America

November 25, 2021November 26, 2021

South African Scientists Detect New Virus Variant; WHO to Assess It

A new coronavirus variant has been detected in South Africa that scientists say is a concern because of its high number of mutations and rapid spread among young people in Gauteng, the country’s most populous province, Health Minister Joe Phaahla announced Thursday.

The coronavirus evolves as it spreads, and many new variants, including those with worrying mutations, often just die out. Scientists monitor for possible changes that could make the virus more transmissible or deadly, but sorting out whether new variants will have a public health impact can take time.

South Africa has seen a dramatic rise in new infections, Phaahla said at an online press briefing.

“Over the last four or five days, there has been more of an exponential rise,” he said, adding that the new variant appears to be driving the spike in cases. Scientists in South Africa are working to determine what percentage of the new cases have been caused by the new variant.

Currently identified as B.1.1.529, the new variant has also been found in Botswana and Hong Kong in travelers from South Africa, he said.

The WHO’s technical working group is to meet Friday to assess the new variant and may decide whether to give it a name from the Greek alphabet.

The British government announced that it was banning flights from South Africa and five other southern African countries effective at noon (1200GMT) Friday, and that anyone who had recently arrived from those countries would be asked to take a coronavirus test.

U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid said there were concerns the new variant “may be more transmissible” than the dominant delta strain and “the vaccines that we currently have may be less effective” against it.

‘Constellation’ of mutations

The new variant has a “constellation of new mutations,” said Tulio de Oliveira, from the Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa, who has tracked the spread of the delta variant in the country.

The “very high number of mutations is a concern for predicted immune evasion and transmissibility,” de Oliveira said.

“This new variant has many, many more mutations,” including more than 30 to the spike protein that affects transmissibility, he said. “We can see that the variant is potentially spreading very fast. We do expect to start seeing pressure in the health care system in the next few days and weeks.”

De Oliveira said a team of scientists from seven South African universities was studying the variant. They have 100 whole genomes of it and expect to have many more in the next few days, he said.

“We are concerned by the jump in evolution in this variant,” he said. One piece of good news is that it can be detected by a PCR test, he said.

After a period of relatively low transmission in which South Africa recorded just more than 200 new confirmed cases per day, in the past week the daily new cases rapidly increased to more than 1,200 on Wednesday. On Thursday, they jumped to 2,465.

The first surge was in Pretoria and the surrounding Tshwane metropolitan area and appeared to be cluster outbreaks from student gatherings at universities in the area, said Phaahla, the health minister. Amid the rise in cases, scientists studied the genomic sequencing and discovered the new variant.

Seriousness required

“This is clearly a variant that we must be very serious about,” said Ravindra Gupta, professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge. “It has a high number of spike mutations that could affect transmissibility and immune response.”

Gupta said scientists in South Africa needed time to determine if the surge in new cases was attributable to the new variant.

“There is a high probability that this is the case,” he said. “South African scientists have done an incredible job of identifying this quickly and bringing it to the world’s attention.”

South African officials had warned that a new resurgence was expected from mid-December to early January and had hoped to prepare for that by getting many more people vaccinated, Phaahla said.

About 41% of South Africa’s adults have been vaccinated and the number of shots being given per day is relatively low, at fewer than 130,000, significantly below the government’s target of 300,000 per day.

South Africa has about 16.5 million doses of vaccines, by Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, in the country and is expecting delivery of about 2.5 million more in the next week, according to Nicholas Crisp, acting director-general of the national health department.

“We are getting in vaccines faster than we are using them at the moment,” Crisp said. “So for some time now, we have been deferring deliveries, not decreasing orders, but just deferring our deliveries so that we don’t accumulate and stockpile vaccines.”

South Africa, with a population of 60 million, has recorded more than 2.9 million COVID-19 cases including more than 89,000 deaths.

To date, the delta variant remains by far the most infectious and has crowded out other once-worrying variants including alpha, beta and mu. According to sequences submitted by countries worldwide to the world’s biggest public database, more than 99% are delta.

Source: Voice of America

November 25, 2021November 26, 2021

Mali Tour Guides Transformed Into Battlefield Interpreters

Aboubacar shared tea and sugary snacks with his colleagues gathered on a mat at a United Nations camp in battle-scarred Mali.

He speaks plainly but with a hint of irony about his transformation from a tour guide with 14 years of experience, until 2014 when he became a front-line military interpreter.

After the war upended his business, he sought work as a translator for the British contingent of the U.N.’s mission in Mali, MINUSMA.

“Before we were protecting the white tourists, but now it’s the whites who protect us in the bush,” he said with a smile.

There are dozens of others like him who work with the British blue helmets every day, speaking Tamasheq, Songhai or Arabic.

He pulled a scarf over his nose, donned dark glasses and became almost unrecognizable.

“It’s very different from what we did before, but the goal is the same: to show the country to foreigners,” said Aboubacar, an alias to protect him and his colleagues.

There were numerous tour guides in the region during the golden age of tourism in the 1990s and 2000s.

They took visitors to see the famed mosque at Djenne, the manuscripts of Timbuktu and to bathe in the Banfora waterfalls in Burkina Faso, among other places.

But they lost their livelihoods in the 2010s when separatist movements and jihadi groups unleashed a cycle of deadly violence that made the region, rich in heritage and natural beauty, too dangerous for tourists.

Most did not find other work.

From tourists to troops

After several years of unemployment, Aboubacar followed a friend’s advice and used the English he learned guiding tourists to approach the U.N. He flew to their base at Gao, which is home to the peacekeepers as well as French forces.

Now he is an intermediary with the local population, dressed in a large army jacket and weaving in and out of the bush in armored vehicles.

He makes introductions, explains the armed foreigners’ mandate and the significance of their U.N. blue helmets.

A day later, under a leafy tree offering the only shade around, Aboubacar’s colleague Moussa approached armed men whose firearms permits the force wanted to check.

Jovial and tactile, he held the shoulders of one member of the armed group, giving the impression more of a gathering of old friends than a tense encounter colored by suspicion.

Essential to UN’s job

Having the translators “is absolutely central for us to do our job,” said Pierre Russell of the British Army Long Range Reconnaissance Group.

“We go out and speak to the local population and without their ability to communicate in up to five or six different languages we wouldn’t be able to do our job.”

The total number of interpreters working with foreign forces is unknown. The dozen who spoke to AFP described a translator corps several hundred in number.

Back at the U.N. base, there were lively discussions.

There is nostalgia for a simpler era, when “life was good” and whites came with cameras in hand.

There are some in Mali who have criticized the intervention of the U.N. and France in a country where the presence of foreign forces has previously proved controversial.

“Obviously we see things, but we keep our opinions to ourselves,” Moussa said.

‘Feed our families’

There is also fear that once the foreign forces leave, the Malian interpreters could face a similar fate to those who supported Western forces in Afghanistan and were suddenly left to their fate after the Taliban takeover.

In the Sahel, “either we resolve the problem and are congratulated … or the jihadists will still be there after the departure of the foreigners and we’ll have to leave,” Youssouf said, wistfully.

He now runs a small business employing interpreters who served with the British blue helmets.

The mood turns when the interpreters recount how some of their number have been accused of being traitors.

Some hide their work from their families, allowing them to believe they simply work in the U.N. camps as contractors like many other local people.

“We have to feed our families,” Youssouf said.

Source: Voice of America

November 25, 2021

Clean Energy & Industrial Gases Group da Nikkiso Anuncia a Criação de Instalações Navais Expandidas na Coreia

TEMECULA, Califórnia, Nov. 24, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — O Nikkiso Clean Energy & Industrial Gases Group (Grupo), subsidiária da Nikkiso Co., Ltd (Japão), tem o orgulho de anunciar a expansão das nossas instalações em Busan na Coreia para acomodar o novo Centro Naval deles. Esta expansão representa o compromisso e apoio deles ao crescimento da indústria de construção naval coreana.

A nova e maior instalação fornece soluções marítimas de sistema completo e servirá como a base do Grupo para todas as atividades marítimas da Coreia. Como instalação unificada da Nikkiso, eles fornecerão soluções marítimas, incluindo skids de bombas, vaporizadores, controles, skids de gás combustível de alta pressão, serviços e muito mais. A instalação inclui capacidades completas de testes criogênicos, e equipe expandida de engenheiros de concepção, gerentes de produção e projetos.

A área naval tem sido um dos principais focos do Grupo, e essa expansão proporciona uma forte estrutura de suporte para o crescimento futuro. A nova instalação está perfeitamente localizada na região para apoiar os principais clientes e proporcionar crescimento antecipado do foco da indústria naval em energia limpa. Com aproximadamente 4.000 metros quadrados, a instalação está equipada para fabricar bombas criogênicas, skid de vaporizador FGSS, skids de estação LH2, skids de processo, e também contará com a mais recente instalação de teste de skid de bomba LN2. O local também inclui um centro de serviço de 342 metros quadrados.

De acordo com Daryl Lamy, Presidente da Nikkiso Cryogenic Pumps: “a Nikkiso ACD é o fornecedor preferido de skids de Gás Combustível para a indústria de construção naval coreana há mais de 20 anos! Com a nossa nova instalação de embalagem e teste de skid localizada perto dos estaleiros na Coreia, agora temos ainda maior capacidade e suporte local para atender ao substancial aumento e demanda global por novas embarcações de transporte e carga movidas a GNL.”

De acordo com Peter Wagner, CEO da Cryogenic Industries e Presidente do Grupo: “Este é um próximo passo empolgante e um marco importante para o nosso Grupo e para o mercado Naval movido a GNL, além de ser um benefício significativo para os nossos clientes da área Naval. A Nikkiso CE&IG agora pode fornecer sistemas e soluções completas para nossos clientes com suporte total da fábrica.”

Informações de Contato:

Nikkiso Clean Energy e Industrial Gases – Coreia
Matriz e Fábrica : 83, Nosan sanup jung-ro, Gangseo-gu, Busan, 46752, Coreia do Sul
Escritório : #1912, 170 Ganggyo jungang-ro, Yeongtong-gu, Suwon,
Gyuenggi 16614 Coreia do Sul
info@NikkisoCEIG-Korea.com

SOBRE A CRYOGENIC INDUSTRIES
A Cryogenic Industries, Inc. (agora membro da Nikkiso Co., Ltd.) fabrica equipamentos de processamento de gás criogênico projetados e plantas de processo de pequena escala para as indústrias de gás natural liquefeito (GNL), serviços de poços e gás industrial. Fundada há mais de 50 anos, a Cryogenic Industries é a empresa controladora da ACD, Cosmodyne e Cryoquip, e de um grupo comumente controlado de aproximadamente 20 entidades operacionais.

Para mais informação, visite www.nikkisoCEIG.com e www.nikkiso.com.

CONTATO COM A MÍDIA:
Anna Quigley
+1.951.383.3314
aquigley@cryoind.com