Conflicts of interest and agenda review

Briefing note for review:

Duplicate concepts in the Computed Tomography imaging hierarchy

Discussion:

Decision:

Resolving Ambiguity – Options for Consideration

Following the last EAG meeting members were asked to consider the 3 options for resolving ambiguity for concepts where not all of the elements that make up full semantic equivalence could or should be offered as clinically suitable replacements.

We would be grateful if you could review the above and provide your views and comments In the comments boxes below.

The following simple example is used to demonstrate each option:

3094009 |Vomiting in infants AND/OR children (disorder)|

..has 3 potential meanings:

Vomiting in infants

Vomiting in children

Vomiting in infants and children

The sum of these 3 meanings gives complete semantic equivalence with the concept 3094009 |Vomiting in infants AND/OR children (disorder)|, however, from the perspective of clinical use “Vomiting in infants and children” is not likely to be helpful as a statement in the individual patient’s record as they cannot be both an infant and a child at the time when the record entry was made.

In order to resolve the inactivation of the ambiguous concept 3094009 |Vomiting in infants AND/OR children (disorder)|there are 3 potential solutions:

Option 1: Representing complete semantic equivalence with “POSSIBLY_EQUIVALENT_TO”:

3094009 |Vomiting in infants AND/OR children (disorder)|

Inactivated as “Ambiguous”:

POSSIBLY_EQUIVALENT_TO new concept |Vomiting in infants (disorder)|

POSSIBLY_EQUIVALENT_TO new concept |Vomiting in children (disorder)|

POSSIBLY_EQUIVALENT_TO new concept |Vomiting in infants and children (disorder)|

As a second stage:

new concept |Vomiting in infants and children (disorder)|

…would be inactivated as “Erroneous” with an annotation; “Vomiting in infants and children is an erroneous concept because an individual cannot be both a child and an infant at the same time”.

There is then a judgment to be made, whether to provide a potential replacement or not. Given that the concept is deemed “Erroneous” it would be acceptable not to provide a suitable replacement that is of equal or less specificity than the original, however, it may be more helpful to use a  historical association of “REPLACEED_BY” and point to the concept 422400008 |Vomiting (disorder)|.

This approach clearly indicates to the user and system implementer that 3094009 |Vomiting in infants AND/OR children (disorder)| is an ambiguous concept and that it is possible to provide full semantic equivalence using individual concepts to exactly represent each element of the ambiguity and from which the user must choose one as a target replacement.

If the user does not know whether this was intended to be vomiting in an infant or child, they would choose |Vomiting in infants and children (disorder)|, at which point the system would then indicate that this concept had been inactivated and replaced by 422400008 |Vomiting (disorder) as the replacement.

This approach intends to make explicit the thinking behind the inactivation and its resolution in a way that is both machine-processable and transparent to the end-user.

There is an impact on the author/editor in having to create and then inactivate the concept that is never to be released as an active concept but much of this process could be supported by enhanced tooling.

Option 2: Using a combination of both “POSSIBLY_EQUIVALENT_TO” and “POSSIBLY_REPLACED_BY”:

3094009 |Vomiting in infants AND/OR children (disorder)|

Inactivate as “Ambiguous”:

POSSIBLY_EQUIVALENT_TO new concept |Vomiting in infants (disorder)|

POSSIBLY_EQUIVALENT_TO new concept |Vomiting in children (disorder)|

POSSIBLY_REPLACED_BY 422400008 |Vomiting (disorder)

An annotation would need to be added; “This concept cannot be made fully semantically equivalent using only clinically useful “POSSIBLY_EQUIVALENT_TO” concepts and therefore a clinically relevant “POSSIBLY_REPLACED_BY” alternative has been provided for that element that is thought to be clinically in error”.

This approach appears to give the same end result as option 1 above, however, the end-user is shielded from the detailed judgment that the author/editor made to identify full semantic equivalence of the inactivated concept. How they then identified and replaced that element that was deemed not to be clinically useful. It also makes it more difficult for implementers if the resolution of ambiguity is sometimes achieved with “POSSIBLY_EQUIVALENT_TO” alone and sometimes in combination with “POSSIBLY_REPLACED_BY”.

3. Using “POSSIBLY_REPLACED_BY” alone:

3094009 |Vomiting in infants AND/OR children (disorder)|

Inactivate as ambiguous

POSSIBLY_REPLACED_BY new concept |Vomiting in infants (disorder)|

POSSIBLY_REPLACED_BY new concept |Vomiting in children (disorder)|

POSSIBLY_REPLACED_BY 422400008 |Vomiting (disorder)

The issue with this approach is that it implies that it was not possible to provide semantically equivalent concepts for ANY part of the concept 3094009 |Vomiting in infants AND/OR children (disorder)|. This is of course not true as we have already established that 2 of the 3 elements can be provided with semantically equivalent alternatives.

Discussion:

Decision:

Decision:

Discussion: 

Decision: