Terminology Services Guide

Search

SNOMED CT Document Library

    Loading...
  

A reference set is a standard format for maintaining and distributing a set of references to SNOMED CT components.

Notes

  • A reference set can be used to represent a subset of components (concepts, descriptions or relationships).

  • A reference set may also associate referenced components with additional information such as:
    • Ordered lists of components
    • Sets of associations between components
    • Mapping between SNOMED CT concepts and other systems codes, classifications, or knowledge resources.

The reference set mechanism provides a standard extensible mechanism that can be used to customize SNOMED CT to meet a wide range of practical use cases1. Detailed information about reference sets is provided in the Reference Sets Practical Guide and in section 5.2 Reference Set Types of the SNOMED CT Release File Specifications.

Table 3.5-1 shows a summary of the terminology services required to support reference set creation and editing.

Table 3.5-1: Services Required to Support Reference Set Creation and Editing

Practical Requirement

Status 2

Required Terminology Services3

Additional Terminology Service Dependencies4

Enable the selection of SNOMED CT edition and version to be used.

REQUIRED

4.1 Select Edition and VersionN/A

Get concepts or descriptions that are members of a reference set

  • In the case of a description, this includes the human-readable term for this refset member

REQUIRED

4.2 Get a Concept, Description or Relationship

  • Get a description
N/A

Get terms for concepts to use in human-readable descriptions of:

  • The current reference set
  • Concepts that are members of a reference set

REQUIRED

4.3 Get Terms for a Concept

N/A

Apply concept subsumption tests to identify candidate concepts for addition to or removal from a reference set.

REQUIRED

4.5 Get and Test Concept Subtypes and Supertypes

N/A

Apply reference set membership criteria to identify:

  • Current members of the reference set being edited
  • Candidate concepts for addition to or removal from a reference set

REQUIRED

4.6 Get and Test Reference Set Membership

N/A

Create and apply an expression constraint query:

  • as an intensional definition of reference set membership; or
  • to identify candidate concepts for addition to or removal from a reference set.5

REQUIRED

4.7 Validate and Apply Expression Constraints

  • Get all concepts that conform to an expression constraint
N/A

Find concepts:

  • to find the id of a named reference set to be edited
  • to be added to or removed from a reference set; or
  • to be included in intensional definition of a reference set

REQUIRED

4.8 Find Concepts

N/A

Get reference set member data (i.e. data of reference sets that extend on the simple type reference set, e.g. data from map type reference sets, association type reference sets etc.)

OPTIONAL

4.10 Get Data from a Reference SetN/A
Update reference set member data

OPTIONAL

Refset type specific functionality 5

N/A

Footnotes
Requirements and use cases supported by reference sets are described in the Reference Sets Practical Guide section 3. Requirements and Use Cases. Terminology services that directly support these use cases are described in section 3.1.6, and sections 3.1.10 to 3.1.13. Most other terminology services either directly or indirectly depend on access to reference sets. For example 4.3 Get Terms for a Concept depends on access to members of a language reference set.
Applications designed to address this use case must support the practical requirements marked as Required. Support for the practical requirements marked as Optional is recommended as these provide enhanced functionality that may be required by some users.
In most cases, a reference to a subsection of 4 Terminology Service Types, implies a requirement for all services marked as Required in that subsection. However, where a reference is followed by a bulleted list, that list specifies the specific terminology services required. Some of the specific services listed as required for an Optional practical requirement may be marked as Recommended in the referenced subsection.
The Additional Terminology Service Dependencies column contains references to services on which a Required Terminology Service depends. This column does not restate dependencies on services listed as required service or additional dependencies for essential requirements listed in earlier rows. A full list of the dependencies of each terminology service is provided in the relevant subsection of 4 Terminology Service Types.
Terminology services that provide a user interface that enables editing of reference set member data are outside the scope of the current guide. SNOMED International provides a Reference Set Service that is accessible by the SNOMED International community. This enables creation and editing of a Simple Reference Set. Other reference set types include additional data designed to meet a specific purpose. Therefore, editors designed to facilitate creation and maintenance of this additional data are required. One example of the is the SNOMED International Mapping Tool.

Feedback
  • No labels