Dear all,
SNOMED International have developed several improvements to both the content, format and structure of the Release packages, and are planning to implement them from the July 2017 International Edition onwards. We would like to provide the community with early visibility of these improvements, which are as follows:
- Update to case significance assignment, in line with the RF2 specification
The incorrect assignment of case significance for descriptions needs to be fixed according to the RF2 specification. The issue is that the value 900000000000448009 |Entire term case insensitive| has not been used due to the data migration from RF1 and limitation of authoring tool. In fact, a majority of SNOMED CT descriptions should be ‘Entire term case insensitive’. These terms can be freely switched to lower or upper case without impact to meaning. The technical batch changes will be made to the case significance value to address the issue. For full details please see the document here: https://confluence.ihtsdotools.org/display/IHTSDO1/IHTSDO-950+Update+of+case+significance+assignment+following+the+RF2+specification - Addition of the MRCM Refsets to the International Edition package
The MRCM Refsets, which were published in February 2017 as a Beta release, will now be included in the International Edition Release package. The following four new files will be incorporated into the Metadata folder, which is a sub-folder of the Refset folder in the Release package:- der2_sssssssRefset_MRCMDomainDelta_INT_20170731.txt
- der2_cissccRefset_MRCMAttributeDomainDelta_INT_20170731.txt
- der2_ssccRefset_MRCMAttributeRangeDelta_INT_20170731.txt
- der2_cRefset_MRCMModuleScopeDelta_INT_20170731.txt
- Improvement to the Release package naming convention
In order to bring the current naming convention into line with the ISO8601 standard, a "Z" suffix will be added to all release package names (but not to internal file names). This will ensure that the time in the release package name is set in the correct context, namely UTC. For example therefore, instead of the July 2017 International Edition release package being called:SnomedCT_InternationalRF2_Production_20170731T120000.zip
SnomedCT_InternationalRF2_Production_20170731T120000Z.zip
- Addition of a new SEP refset to the International Edition package
This refset is being added in order both to assist with the interim solution for the Additional, non-defining Relationships, and also to enable us to further improve our Quality Assurance processes. Please see the following page for details of the proposed new Refset:
SEP maps and reference sets - Improvements to the RefsetDescriptor file
The refsetDescriptor file will be improved in order to include descriptors for the pre-defined reference set types. - Removal of the SNOMED CT RT Identifer refset from the International Edition package
As has been previously communicated, in 2009 SNOMED International's General Assembly decided that effective April 26, 2017 SNOMED International would no longer license the use of SNOMED antecedent (old) works. This decision received the clinical support of the World Association of Societies of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, as they had identified the same risks. From April 26, 2017, therefore, SNOMED International is no longer maintaining antecedent versions of SNOMED, including SNOP, SNOMED, SNOMED II, SNOMED International (3.x), and SNOMED RT. Since both clinical science and terminology have evolved considerably since its development, the use of these older versions may involve risk to patients and safety issues.
As part of this process, the antecedent SNOMED Identifier reference set will be withdrawn and no longer be available in the International Edition release.
To provide a shared resource and a single source of truth on these antecedent issues we have assembled a set of FAQs available at our SNOMED International website here: https://ihtsdo.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/folders/4000013539
If you have any questions regarding any of these upcoming changes, please contact SNOMED International immediately at support@snomed.org with “July 2017 International Edition Release improvements question” in the subject line.
Kind regards,
Andrew Atkinson | Release Manager