A new agreement between the Global Medical Device Nomenclature Association (GMDNA) and a key provider of clinical terminology should further drive global adoption of GMDNA codes among healthcare providers.

The GMDA’s new partnership is with the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization (IHTSDO), an entity that develops standardized clinical terminology (SNOMED CT), and establishes the use of GMDN as the basis for medical device components of SNOMED CT. In addition, the GMDNA will make use of any SNOMED CT-related content not already incorporated into the GMDN database.

Key aims of the agreement according to the GMDNA and IHTSDO include more harmonized clinical terminology, greater use of both GMDN and SNOMED CT, and improved organizational efficiency.

The agreement will last for a five-year period; both entities involved claim the partnership will lead to broader global use of terminologies benefiting patients as well as regulators and the medical device industry.

“The arrangement will help to link the medical device supply chain to the application of care to individual patients for medical device, patient risk and safety use cases,” GMNDA and IHTSDO officials state in their joint press release. Furthermore, the agreement will enhance efforts to recall defective medical devices.