Jim Case

This meeting is being recorded to ensure that important discussion points are not missed in the minutes.  The recording will be available to the SNOMED International community.  Joining the meeting by accepting the Zoom prompt declares that you have no objection to your comments being recorded

Jim Case

None noted.

Jim Case 

Nicola Ingram 

A Briefing Note has been written to inform the community of practice about changes to the dose form modeling to include the use of newly published concentrate dose forms (added as required by the EDQM mapping project) in the modeling of clinical drugs in the International Edition of SNOMED CT. The intent is to gather feedback on a change to Editorial Guidance for clinical drug concepts with dose form of drops or spray (feedback to be received by 22th April).

The document is attached to the meeting agenda above.

Jim Case 

At the 2023-02-27 EAG conference call, the EAG approved the inactivation of the Navigational concept hierarchy. The EAG members requested a Briefing Note for the Community of Practice outlining the rationale and steps for inactivation.  The briefing note is attached for review.

Jim Case 

Based on input from Monique van Berkum (document attached to agenda above) and the Gravity project, 13 "at risk" concepts submitted by the Gravity project were inactivated.  Additionally, a recommendation to create the necessary pre-coordinated concepts for use in the HAS REALIZATION relationship for the At risk model has mitigated the current need to extend the range of HAS INTERPRETATION, for the purposes of modeling risk findings.

This remodeling has been performed and should be available in the May 2023 release.

The full model currently being used for "At risk" concepts is defined in the template located at: At [qualifier] risk of [finding/event] (finding) - Ready for review

•  Jim Case to continue modeling based on revised editorial guidance.

Document by James R. Campbell  related to risk calculators is attached to the agenda.  

The primary premise is that the "proper use of HAS_INTERPRETATION when INTERPRETATION has value of an Observable entity is that the valueset must adhere rigorously to datatype restrictions specified by the SCALE_TYPE defining the Observable concept."   Additionally, the following extensions to the concept model are proposed:

1) Expand the valueset constraints for 719722006|Has realization (attribute)|

Note: Range for this attribute is currently << 272379006 |Event (event)| OR << 404684003 |Clinical finding (finding)| OR << 71388002 |Procedure (procedure)| OR << 719982003 |Process (qualifier value)|

2) Add a Risk property to <<118598001|Property (qualifier value)|
3) Create a role hierarchy for 363713009|Has interpretation (attribute)| to support additional attributes including concrete domains and ordered refsets that are needed
for Quantitative and Ordinal or quantitative Scale types
4) Aligning with the editorial principles of LOINC, a policy for employing refsets defining the valuesets for observable entity concepts with scale type of Nominal, Ordinal and
Ordinal or quantitative. These refsets would allow interpretation of evaluation findings and conceivably could by integrated into classification.

In reference to content development in the International release, the following must be considered:

• On 2020-04-29 the EAG approved an editorial policy: When defining observable entities for the international release, the SCALE TYPE attribute will not be used. If extensions would like to add specific subtypes of observable entities that include the SCALE TYPE, they are free to do so.
  When using observable entities to define clinical findings, international concepts that do not include a SCALE TYPE relationship would be used a values for the INTERPRETS relationship. The exception to this guidance are existing "vital sign" observable entities that have been defined with the SCALE TYPE of "Quantitiative".
• The majority of Observable entities in the International release of SNOMED CT are not modeled, so Scale Type is not available.
• There are currently no International concepts that require concrete values for HAS INTERPRETATION
• It is not possible to support both concept based values and concrete values in the same range for a scale type such as "Quantitative or Ordinal"

Discussion:

Should "Mechanical complication of device" be a disorder or a finding?

Current situation:

111746009 |Mechanical complication of device (disorder)| has 215 subtypes, all of which refer to a failure of a device without specifying a deleterious effect on the patient. 

       e.g. 285961000119107 |Mechanical breakdown of prosthetic heart valve (disorder)|

We also have disorder concepts that refer to a patient condition due to mechanical failure of a device 

       e.g. 5053004 |Cardiac insufficiency due to prosthesis (disorder)|

Without specifying the resultant condition associated with device mechanical issues, is it appropriate that these are represented as patient disorders, or should they be findings that may be related to disorders in the patient?

A briefing note using "Leakage of device as an example is located here.

Discussion:

Without an associated condition in the patient it is unclear whether there is an adverse impact on the patient.  In general, if the device is implanted, it can be assumed that there is a negative impact. These should be retained as disorders.  Each of the subtypes would need to be evaluated as to the potential impact on the patient.

2023-04-04

Additional issues and questions:

1. If we agree that implantable device malfunctions result in an adverse condition in the patient, should the FSN reflect that, e.g. "Disorder due to mechanical breakdown of prosthetic heart valve"? 
2. SNOMED CT does not have a general classification of implantable devices.  Is the following definition suitable to provide editorial guidance? FDA - "Medical implants are devices or tissues that are placed inside or on the surface of the body."

Jim Case 

Penny Livesay 

Review of Glossary definition for "Sufficiently defined concept".  See sufficiently defined concept

Additional information on Necessary and sufficient conditions: D.2 Necessary and Sufficient - Examples

Can a concept be sufficiently defined if part of the meaning of the FSN is captured only in the wording of a stated intermediate primitive parent, not in defining attribute-value relationships? For example: Joint laxity (finding) is primitive since it has no defining relationship(s) that capture the "laxity" aspect of the FSN meaning - but can its subtypes (e.g. Elbow joint laxity (finding), Hand joint laxity (finding) etc.) be considered to have a sufficient definition based on the stated parent Joint laxity + their finding site relationship specifying which joint is involved? Currently they are all primitive, but some subtypes of Laxity of ligament are defined on the basis of their intermediate primitive parent and their finding site.

Clear, explicit editorial guidance is needed on this question. The statement here "A concept is sufficiently defined if its defining characteristics are adequate to define it relative to its immediate supertypes" is somewhat ambiguous, since it's not clear whether "defining characteristics" here refers to defining attribute-value relationships specifically or to the logical definition as a whole.

• the phrase "relative to its immediate supertypes" would seem to argue against making a concept defined based in part on information in the FSN of an intermediate primitive parent (since a parent concept, as an immediate supertype itself, obviously cannot contribute to define its own subtype relative to itself. However, that implication may be an artifact of imprecise wording rather than representing actual editorial policy.
  If information represented in the FSN of a stated intermediate primitive parent can be considered to fill a gap in meaning left by the defining attribute relationships, I think that policy should be clearly stated (and ideally illustrated with an example) either here or under Intermediate Primitive Concept Modeling. (Whichever section the guidance is placed in, it might also be helpful to add a "See ____" link to that guidance in the other section as a kind of cross-indexing).

• The SNOMED Glossary states: ""A sufficiently defined concept has at least one sufficient definition that distinguishes it from any concepts or expressions that are neither equivalent to, nor subtypes of, the defined concept". Is "definition status" of a concept part of the definition of a concept? Currently it acts in that way.  This occurs when two or more concepts have the same defining relationships, but only one is marked as sufficient defined.  Those that are not marked as sufficiently defined classify as subtypes.
  • In some cases the SNOMED concept model is inadequate to "fully" define the meaning of an FSN, yet can provide a sufficient definition to make it unique within the terminology.  In these cases the primitive subtypes with the same relationship have the necessary relationships, but not sufficient definitions.
• The Glossary also states "Prior to July 2018, SNOMED CT could only support one sufficient definition for each concept could not represent the 8801005 | Secondary diabetes mellitus (disorder)| example above. A further limitation, that also prevented formal representation of that example was the stated relationship file was only able to represent necessary conditions.". 
  • Proposed clarification: "Prior to July 2018, SNOMED CT could only support one sufficient definition for each concept, and the stated relationships comprising that definition could represent only necessary conditions. A concept such as 8801005 | Secondary diabetes mellitus (disorder)| , which can be caused either by a substance or by another disorder, could not be sufficiently defined within these constraints, since neither | Causative agent| | Substance| nor| Due to| = 64572001 | Disease| is necessarily true. Assigning the concept two sufficient definitions can, however, allow the full meaning of 8801005 | Secondary diabetes mellitus (disorder)| to be formally represented. (See sufficient definition)."
• Lastly, there is a statement: "Following these changes a concept will only be marked as sufficiently defined if it is sufficiently defined by relationships. However, the OWL axioms may provide a sufficient definition that cannot be fully represented as relationships."
  • This has come about with the ability to model concepts with multiple sufficient axioms using GCIs. Proposed clarification: "Following these changes a concept will only be given a definition status of Defined if it is sufficiently defined by the stated relationships in a single axiom. However, multiple OWL axioms may provide a sufficient definition representing different sufficient but not necessary relationships. These concepts will retain the default status Primitive but function as sufficiently defined concepts that will subsume subtypes."

Discussion:

Concepts with identical definitions aside from the Definition status may be classified as supertype/subtypes, due to the limitations of the concept model to allow for more robust definitions. This is being left with the EAG for additional comments to be reviewed at the April meeting. There is a question about whether the browser can be modified to show an icon that can identify a concept as having GCIs.  A question will be forwarded to the tech team.

Update 2023-03-26:  The current SNOMED Browser displays concepts with GCIs  in the stated diagram view; e.g.:

•  Jim Case to send a note to the MAG inquiring about the value of a new definition status that identifies a concept with GCIs

Next meeting April 4. SNOMED business meeting