The Allergies/Hypersensitivity and Intolerance Clinical Reference Group is seeking information on which countries are using the allergy to substance concepts e.g. 417532002 |Allergy to fish (finding)| rather than just documenting allergies using substance and product concepts.
Camilla Wiberg Danielsen Please advise if your country is using the allergy to substance concepts rather than just documenting allergies using substance and product concepts.
Daniel Karlsson Please advise if your country is using the allergy to substance concepts rather than just documenting allergies using substance and product concepts.
Sheree Hemingway Please advise if your country is using the allergy to substance concepts rather than just documenting allergies using substance and product concepts.
Elze de Groot Please advise if your country is using the allergy to substance concepts rather than just documenting allergies using substance and product concepts.
Linda Parisien Please advise if your country is using the allergy to substance concepts rather than just documenting allergies using substance and product concepts.
Matt Cordell Please advise if your country is using the allergy to substance concepts rather than just documenting allergies using substance and product concepts.
Olivier Bodenreider Please advise if your country is using the allergy to substance concepts rather than just documenting allergies using substance and product concepts.
Jostein Ven Please advise if your country is using the allergy to substance concepts rather than just documenting allergies using substance and product concepts.
Theresa Barry Please advise if your country is using the allergy to substance concepts rather than just documenting allergies using substance and product concepts.
Please post your responses in the Country response table below.
In our national summary record, we are using concepts like fish, milk, egg etc to document past reactions to etc, i.e. the allergen as a separate information element. Our plan is to map this to SNOMED CT (partially done already) or use SNOMED CT as the base terminology. In that context, we won't use the precoordinated concepts. The national work on archetypes do not use the precoordinated concept. I will check whether the precoordinated concepts are used in other contexts. Update will follow.
Denmark
06.12.2019
Denmark is presently not using the allergy concepts.
The Netherlands
09.12.2019
In the Netherlands we are using a few of the precoordinated allergies in our diagnosis list: allergy for insect venom, allergy to food, allergic contact dermatitis, occupational allergy, allergic inhalant dermatitis. Next to that we have 5 allergens reference sets where the allergy can be specified further.
Australia
10.12.2019
Both sets of concepts are in use.
We encourage vendors to implement the substance heirarchy for "recording allergens" which most already do. This ensures they get the best coverage / user experience available. Also any decision support is easier to trigger of this (not having to calculate the causative agent, though that's not a huge task)
The Allergy concepts (clinical findings) are also used when populating a generic problem list. However most systems have a dedicated Allergy recording module, where the agents are recorded.
We strongly discourage the use of anything but Clinical Findings/Situations in a problems field. As the intent is often ambiguous - is a record of "Amoxicillin" mean Allergy to, or Current medication ?