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Below, please find a summary of our meeting of December 8, 2020 with action items highlighted.  Please respond to these action items by January 8, 2021.

Summary of Dentistry CRG meeting, December 8, 2020

 Please provide feedback, as requested below, by Friday January 8, 2021

22 people participated in our meeting, including several new attendees from the European Federation of Periodontology (welcome!), with discussion and feedback from many of those in attendance.

The editors discussed SNOMED International updates and presented a concept that requires some alteration and the group provided feedback to Sarah Warren.

We then discussed the status of the periodontal disease concepts.  Members from EFP recommended providing some clarity between stable and unstable disease states, as stable may not need treatment whereas unstable does.  Jurkovich will coordinate a meeting between the editors, EFP and AAP to identify a best path forward to meet this need.

Following the meeting, Joel White sent us a short list of concepts that some US dental schools are using to represent stable conditions.  Below is a copy of the email content:

We reached out to periodontists at US dental schools that have implemented the new periodontal classification of disease and found the following in regards to periodontal disease stability.

Parent term-Reduced Periodontium  

Children

            Nonperiodontal disease

            Stable periodontitis

            Periodontitis in remission/control

Please consider these terms and hierarchy

I would ask colleagues to review this suggestion and determine if it is an appropriate method and complete enough list of concepts to properly represent stability.  If it is, we can move ahead with the current submissions and add these to represent stable periodontal status. If there are still questions or concerns, I am more than happy to put together the smaller group to develop any needed content to bring back to the CRG for evaluation and approval.  Please review and let me know by Friday, January 8, 2021.

In addition, the EFP members attending will review the gingival disease concepts with colleagues and provide feedback on alterations that might improve the concepts identified in the spreadsheet shared with all.  Again, many of the concepts are already represented within SNOMED CT, so we are exploring where we might need to locate additional current concepts or possibly add new ones to meet International needs.

Finally, we will also begin the process of reviewing the last segment of the classification system which includes implant related concepts and put together an initial spreadsheet for review to determine whether the classification system is already well supported within SNOMED CT or where we may need to alter/add concepts.

The group also spent a considerable amount of time discussing procedures and the need for this to be a high priority within our work plan for 2021.  It was suggested that we put together a small group of those most interested in developing this further and have that group develop a plan and approach for the entire CRG to consider.  I have had a couple of people already express interest to participate.  I would very much like to see representation from those countries most involved in developing and (potentially) using the SNOMED procedures in the near term.  Please let me know by January 8 if you are able to contribute and participate in a procedures sub-group.

Discussion of our 2021 work plan focused on the periodontal and procedures issues and there was general agreement that the list developed at the October CRG meeting is still the appropriate list from an inclusive and priority viewpoint.  I will work with the editors to properly inform those at SNOMED International of the work plan.

Finally, we discussed 2021 meetings.  Currently, we hold bi-monthly meetings, February, April, June, August, October and December.  These meetings are usually 60-90 minutes each.  Historically, we have held them at 1430 UTC in February and December and 1330 UTC in June and October.  The April meeting is usually associated with the SNOMED International Business meetings held in London and our times can vary.  The 2021 April meeting may again be virtual, so as soon as I know our assigned time slots, I will let the group know.  Our October meeting is usually held in conjunction with the October business meetings and SNOMED Expo and usually takes place on the Monday of the October meeting “week”.  Again, as we know more, I will let people know the expected meeting day and time.

If the times listed above for our meetings not associated with SNOMED International meetings are troublesome for you, please let me know by January 8 and we can possibly put together a poll to identify better meeting times again