Situations

A summary of the issues are as follows:

There is a need to define the meaning of "finding", "disorder", "situation" in a reproducible way, or come up with alternative categories and alternative definitions. Otherwise there will be duplication, confusion, and impairment of the value of the terminology. Recent revisions suggest categories such as "condition" with "structure, process, disposition" subtypes, and "clinical life phase", and "information entity" which includes "observation result". These need further definition, examples, and a full elaboration. Here are some typical questions that illustrate the difficulties:

1) Observation results vs clinical life phases: “What is the difference between |bradycardia (finding)| and |bradyarrhythmia (disorder)| ? Is one a subtype of the other? If not, why not?”
2) Situations vs clinical life phases: “What is the difference between |Nausea present (situation)| and |Nausea (finding)|? Why have two codes when only one appears to be needed here?”
3) Clinical phase with an abnormality vs clinical phase with a disposition: “What is the difference between |Headache (finding)| and |Headache disorder (disorder)|? What is the relationship between them?”

Phase 1

Phase 2

1. Within Situations hierarchy, identification of procedure with context and observation results
   
   
2. Move Observation results to Observable Entity hierarchy, and restructure Situations hierarchy

The Situations project has been stalled in 2016, resources have been allocated to higher priority areas. The Substances planning work has started and will address the issues surrounding Situations for planning purposes only. For possible work related to Observations, please contact Daniel Karlsson, the project chair of Observations for more details.

1. Artf 231800 - Refining meaning in clinical findings, including situation, disorder, observation result

2. Artf6167 - Situation hierarchy refinement