About the Omaha System
The purpose of the Omaha System Guidelines Web site (omahasystemguidelines.org) and app is to provide evidence-based practice (EBP) guidelines/standardized care plans in coded format for use by healthcare practitioners and consumers. These Omaha System/SNOMED CT guidelines were developed using crowd-sourcing techniques by numerous stakeholders including scholars, clinical experts, and Omaha System experts.
In alignment with World Health Organization definition of guidelines, this web site provides documents containing recommendations for clinical practice or public health policy for numerous and diverse populations, practices, and programs. Guidelines include recommendations that tell the intended end-user what he or she can or should do in specific situations to achieve the best health outcomes possible. Guidelines offer a choice among different interventions or measures having an anticipated positive impact on health and implications for the use of resources (WHO, 2014).
The Omaha System Community of Practice provides the venue for review of guidelines. Omaha System users globally participate in the development and review of guidelines. All guidelines on this web site have been approved by the Guidelines leadership: Karen Monsen, Amy Lytton, and Karen Martin. For further information on how you can participate in this exciting project, please contact Karen Monsen.
WHO Handbook for Guideline Development – 2nd Edition (World Health Organization, 2011)
Category Descriptions
Teaching, Guidance, and Counseling: Activities designed to provide information and materials, encourage action and responsibility for self-care and coping, and assist the individual/family/community to make decisions and solve problems.
Treatments and Procedures: Technical activities such as wound care, specimen collection, resistive exercises, and medication prescriptions that are designed to prevent, decrease, or alleviate signs and symptoms of the individual/family/community.
Case Management: Activities such as coordination, advocacy, and referral that facilitate service delivery, improve communication among health and human service providers, promote assertiveness, and guide the individual/family/community toward use of appropriate resources.
Surveillance: Activities such as detection, measurement, critical analysis, and monitoring intended to identify the individual/family/community's status in relation to a given condition or phenomenon.