Public Health Surveillance

Hi everyone, Canada Health Infoway is proud to announce a significant milestone in Canadian health terminology infrastructure: the successful completion of the initial scope of the Canadian SNOMED CT Drug Extension, encompassing all Health Canada DIN-based drug products marketed since October 2022. This achievement places Canada among a growing number of countries developing national SNOMED CT drug-extension capabilities, laying the groundwork for enhanced medication terminology interoperability across jurisdictions, vendors, and clinical systems. Developed in close collaboration with jurisdictional and vendor partners and with Santé Québec's UCNI playing a foundational role, the extension reflects a truly pan-Canadian effort. It includes 45,000 SNOMED CT concepts and 14,859 DIN-based drug products. The initiative now transitions into a structured maintenance phase focused on targeted content improvements, implementation support, and broader scope discussions. The Canadian SNOMED CT Drug Extension complements existing medication terminology infrastructure, including Health Canada’s Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set (CCDD), which continues to be published and supported by Canada Health Infoway. Importantly, this extension is designed to support a wide range of clinical and operational use cases across the medication lifecycle. Beyond prescribing, it enables standardized data for medication administration, dispensing workflows, pharmacovigilance and safety monitoring, as well as inventory and supply chain management. This breadth of application is key to advancing consistent, high-quality medication data across care settings. The extension is fully available in English and French, representing a significant achievement in ensuring accessibility and usability across Canada’s diverse healthcare environments. The Canadian SNOMED CT Drug Extension represents a strategic investment in Canada's long-term health information infrastructure. It establishes a scalable, internationally aligned medication terminology foundation designed to enable stronger semantic interoperability, improved medication data exchange, and deeper integration with SNOMED CT-based clinical systems nationwide. For more information or questions, please .... Thank you,

Dear PHSC members, Please note that our meeting scheduled for this Thursday, June 4th, has been cancelled. The discussions required for the ActImmunizationReason value set have been postponed. This will allow everyone additional time to connect and gather the necessary feedback. Thank you,

Dear PHSC members, Just a reminder to provide me your feedback by May 26th. Thank you,