When a postcoordinated expression is created during the implementation process, this may involve the manual creation of a display term for each expression. Two scenarios for the manual creation of display terms can be outlined:
- The list of clinical phrases is developed first, based on user requirements or an existing library of clinical phrases, and then these will be mapped to SNOMED expressions
- A set of postcoordinated expressions are created first to represent the clinical meanings that are required, and a display term is created for each expression
- This approach may be assisted by Natural Language Generation technologies and techniques to automatically suggest appropriate terms for each expression
The challenge associated with the creation of terms for expressions is that the meaning represented in the term may differ from the meaning of the expression itself. This deviation may arise due to limitation of the concept model or implementation constraints. Implementers should, therefore, consider if they want to support the creation of terms for expressions and in which case they should implement a process to assure the quality of the created terms.
The goal of assigning a term to an expression is to select a term that is an accurate synonym for the meaning conveyed by the expression, ensuring semantic equivalence between the two. If the display term does not fully capture the meaning expressed in the expression, the expression should be labeled as a primitive ('<<<') to indicate that some aspects of the term's semantics are not reflected in the expression.
| Source term | Target expression | Definition status |
|---|---|---|
| Bleeding from larynx | Equivalent ('===') | |
| Bleeding from larynx requiring transfusion | <<< 131148009 |Bleeding| : 363698007 |Finding site| = 4596009 |Laryngeal structure| Note in this case the phrase "requiring transfusion" can't be modeled with the available attributes and, therefore, semantic equivalence is not achievable. | Primitive ('<<<') |
To avoid inconsistency between the display term and the expression, the recommended approach for providing a human-readable term for an expression is to automatically generate a display term. This approach, even though it may require human validation, ensures that the terms used in the display term are derived from terms approved as part of the authoring of the concepts referred to by the expression.
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