2 Use Cases

In some situations, parts of a SNOMED CT expression, expression constraint or query are unknown at the time of authoring. In such cases, the SNOMED CT template syntax may be used in conjunction with the appropriate language syntax to represent a template of a specific type. For example:

• Using the template syntax with SNOMED CT compositional grammar enables the representation of expression templates
• Using the template syntax with the SNOMED CT expression constraint Language enables the representation of expression constraint templates

• Using the template syntax with the SNOMED CT query language¹  enables the representation of query templates.

This version of the SNOMED CT template syntax specifically focuses on supporting two important use cases in which the SNOMED CT template syntax is needed to represent expression templates. In particular:

• Authoring Pre-coordinated Clinical Concepts
• Defining Post-coordinated Clinical Meanings

In these use cases, the template syntax is applied to SNOMED CT Compositional Grammar to create an Expression Template Language. 

Future versions of the syntax may consider other features designed to support additional use cases for expression templates, expression constraint templates and query templates.

Some of these other use cases are described in Other Use Cases for Expression Templates.