2016-08-22 Editorial Advisory Group Conference Call

• Approve minutes from 06/27/2016
  
  

• Seek volunteers for one year terms.

Discussion on the Use of “+” and “&” in LOINC Components and their representation in SNOMED CT as part of the LOINC/IHTSDO alignment

Disjunctive components

Are numeric ranges separated by dash, em-dash, or "to", or "from"?

e.g. |128131000119102|History of low birth weight status, 2-2.5kg (situation).
Is there supposed to be a space between the number and the unit (e.g. 2mg or 2 mg)?

Existing content does not use a space, but use of a space has been standard editorial policy.

Should we use a reference such as AMA or Chicago Manual of Style (and there are probably others) to provide guidance?

Adding diagnostic imaging of multiple body sites and procedures

Examples:

Ultrasonography of abdomen and ultrasonography of pelvis with transrectal ultrasonography (procedure)

Ultrasonography of pelvis and obstetric ultrasonography with transvaginal ultrasonography (procedure)

Ultrasonography of knee and doppler ultrasonography of vein of lower limb (procedure)

Summary of previous discussion: (see 2016-01-22 Editorial AG Conference Call)

• Current FSN naming conventions result in "non-user-friendly" descriptions. Creation of another description without the semantic tag adds no value
• Many existing FSNs would be ambiguous without the addition of the semantic tag.
• Users often do not request "preferred terms" so rely on editors to provide appropriate descriptions.
• Historically, many FSNs were glorified preferred terms
• This is an issue that only affects English versions as translation provide terms of use in their languages
• Challenge to editors is when to create a different preferred term if the FSN term is not user-friendly.
• This has an impact on acceptance of word order variants as preferred terms.

Assumptions:

• Semantic tags provide value in disambiguating concepts in different hierarchies with the same description (e.g Swab (physical object) vs. Swab (specimen))
• Current FSN naming conventions do not always provide user friendly descriptions, so duplication of these descriptions adds no value.

• Consensus on options: 1) require matching description (SCA give error) or 2) matching description optional (SCA gives warning)
• Bruce Goldberg To take this naming issue back to the ECE for discussion and recommendation.

During the congenital disease revision project, it was determined that the differentiating feature of Developmental anomalies vs. acquired anomalies was the process/origin of the anomaly. Historicvally this resulted in the creation of the Developmental anomaly (morphologic abnormality) subhierarchy which essentially duplicates content within the Morphologically abnormal structure hierarchy with only the addition of "Congenital". This has caused substantial issues with the Congenital disease revision project. The following is proposed:

1. In order to inactivate the “Congenital X (morphologic abnormality)” subhierarchy, must have a way to identify the non-congenital morphologies as a result of a developmental process.  The new proposed model is that the range for PATHOLOGICAL PROCESS be expanded to include “Pathological development process”(existing concept not in approved range).  This relationship would only be used where the abnormality is the direct result of abnormal development.  The primary use would be for children of “Congenital malformation”.
2. Congenital deformities, which may not be the result of a developmental process (mechanical or traumatic), would not have the PATHOLOGICAL PROCESS relationship added.
3. Concepts that currently have the ASSOCIATED MORPHOLOGY = Developmental anomaly would be replaced with a relationship group of ASSOCIATED MORPHOLOGY =  “Morphologically abnormal structure” and PATHOLOGICAL PROCESS = “Pathological developmental process”.

This has been preliminarily tested and no unexpected, untoward or erroneous inferences were identified.

Idiopathic disease is currently a primitive concept that is inconsistently used. As a working definition, Idiopathic = "relating to or denoting any disease or condition that arises spontaneously or for which the cause is unknown." While it is arguable that Idiopathic is a "process" per se, one could equate it to "unidentified process" that has clinical value. There are currently around 200 concepts with Idiopathic in one or more descriptions (IHTSDO-799).

Propose to test the extension of the range of PATHOLOGICAL PROCESS to include

Space Actions

We are meeting for a full day in New Zealand. Need substantive topics to move forward.

• Solicit additional agenda topics for Face-to-face meeting

JCA is traveling Sept 10-23. Meeting scheduled for Sept 26