Introduction

SNOMED CT is a global terminology that was purposefully designed to be multi-lingual. SNOMED CT concepts are abstract clinical ideas, which can be described using many different synonymous terms. Translation tools support the creation and review of descriptions in different languages.

​

The International Edition of SNOMED CT is distributed with English descriptions (US and GB English dialects). Currently, entire or part translations of SNOMED CT are available in a number of languages dialects, including US English, UK English, AU English, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Lithuanian, Swedish and French. Translation tooling can be used to support additional translations of SNOMED CT by Member countries/territories or group of Members that share a common language.

Translations are usually planned in stages, by prioritising subsets of SNOMED CT and then growing the coverage of the translation over time. Translation subsets may be prioritised in a variety of ways, e.g. based on frequency of use, subsets that directly relate to a specific implementation use case, or by hierarchy. Translation is an ongoing process. As new content is added to SNOMED CT, new translations may be required.

​

For more information on SNOMED CT translation, please refer to the Translation page.

​

SNOMED International translation tools

 

SNOMED International actively encourages and supports Members in translating SNOMED CT into their national languages, and offers a choice of tooling to fit different translation workflows and levels of technical capability.

​

- Reference Set and Translation Tool

The ​Reference Set and Translation Tool is SNOMED International's original tool for creating and maintaining SNOMED CT translations. It supports structured, collaborative translation work directly against the terminology, and produces an output similar to RF2. Additional tooling is required to create a standard RF2 release.

 

- SNOMED Translation Studio

Translation Studio, developed by SNOMED International, is a new AI assisted workspace for translating SNOMED CT into your national language.

​​

Scoping what to translate

You define a "translation set" - the slice of SNOMED CT you're working on - by ECL expression, hierarchy, reference set membership, or an explicit concept list. There's a visual ECL builder, so your terminologists don't need to hand-write query syntax to scope a batch of work.

​

Getting terms in

Several ways to author translations, so teams can pick what fits their workflow:

• Spreadsheet/CSV upload - bring existing translation spreadsheets in, with automatic header and delimiter detection, and duplicate concept rows automatically merged.

• "Zen mode" - a focused, single-column editor for working through terms one at a time: manage synonyms, promote a synonym to preferred term, and accept AI suggestions inline.

• Legacy archive import - bring across old Refset Tool ZIP exports if you're migrating from a previous system.

 

AI-assisted translation

Translation Studio can generate machine-suggested translations (individually or in a batch, with an "accept all" option), using a recent GPT model from OpenAI. Suggestions aren't generic - they're grounded in a language translation policy your team fills in (naming conventions, style rules for your dialect) and a curated "golden set" of previously approved translations, so the AI stays consistent with your centre's own conventions rather than producing generic output.

​

Quality and safety checks

Automatic term normalization, case-significance detection, language-code validation on import, and guardrails that prevent English-language (en-us/en-gb) reference sets from being accidentally treated as translation targets.

 

Review workflow

Every translated term moves through a status lifecycle - Not Started → Needs Edit → For Review → Approved → Complete - so you can track progress and assign review responsibility rather than treating translation as one big all-or-nothing task. Import jobs keep a history of what was updated versus skipped (and why), so nothing silently falls through the cracks.

​

Publishing back to Snowstorm

Once approved, translations sync back to your terminology server (Snowstorm) with a computed diff/push plan, rather than a blind overwrite - so you can see what's changing before it goes live, and edge cases like synonym reordering or large refset pushes are handled safely.

​

Dashboard and oversight

A translation dashboard shows all your language refsets/sets with status counts and progress, so a manager can see at a glance how far along each translation effort is. The UI also supports RTL layout for right-to-left target languages.

 

In short

Translation Studio gives a national release centre one place to scope, author (by hand, by spreadsheet, or with AI help), quality-check, review, and publish translations into their national SNOMED CT extension - with policy-aware AI assistance that adapts to your own style guide rather than a one-size-fits-all model.

 

This lowers the barrier to entry for Members starting or scaling up a translation effort, while keeping a human-in-the-loop review step for quality and clinical accuracy.

​​​​

Availability

Translation Studio is available now to Simplex users. It replaces external tools like the Weblate-based Translation Dashboard.

Simplex is a no-fee open-access hosted platform for SNOMED extension development.

​​

Translation Studio will also become available as part of the Managed Service in early 2027.

​

​