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Aside from representing historical associations, association reference sets can be used to link components which have an additional relationship in a specific documentation situation. The type of association SNOMED CT represents relationships between concepts that are necessarily (i.e. always) true. However, other relationships between concepts may exist in specific situations or use cases. An association reference set can be used to represent these additional relationships, which are not necessarily true, but which are needed for a specific purpose depends on the requirements and context. Examples include:

• Associate a set of procedures with a particular clinical finding. This technique ensures that only relevant procedures are displayed when specific findings are selected
• Relating a set of procedure or observable concepts to procedure concepts. To specify which procedures might be performed as part of another, more general procedure.

This use of association reference sets can be used to support effective documentation and consistent documentation practice, in other words by constraining the set of selectable items to those relevant for the situation based on the prior selections. Additional technical solutions can be utilized to implement these constraints, but the functionality can also be supported by association reference set, allowing easy and standardized distribution of a set of predefined rules. The idea behind such use of an association refset is illustrated below.

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Illustration of how an associations can be used to create a causal relationship between different types of concepts (e.g. disorders and procedures) .

• Associations between procedures and the clinical findings that serve as an indication for that procedure. These associations enable relevant procedures to be displayed when specific clinical findings are selected.
• Associations between a medication and its known side effects. These associations enable relevant side effects to be displayed when specific medications are selected
• Associations between a disease and the set of possible symptoms that may be experienced. These associations enable relevant diseases to be displayed when a set of symptoms are selected.

Association reference sets can be used to constrain (or guide) data entry into fields, where the value is dependent on (or has some type of association with) the value of another field. While other technical solutions are possible, the association reference set provides a standardized way of representing and distributing the associations required to support this functionality. The figure below illustrates how an association reference set could be used for this purpose.

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