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• Extension Content
• Reference Sets

Why is this important?

SNOMED CT is designed to allow the International Edition to be enhanced by adding Extensions that address national or local requirements. Additional content required to support national, local or organizational needs that may not have international relevance or may not meet the editorial guideline for inclusion in the International Edition.

SNOMED CT design also includes the Reference Set mechanism which provides a standard way to customize and enhance content for use in a particular 

What is this?

Extension Content

Many clinical concepts are relevant in all countries, organizations and specialties but some concepts are relevant only to a particular environment. SNOMED CT is designed to allow the International Edition to be enhanced by adding Extensions to meet national or local requirements without compromising the main body of SNOMED CT. This is intended to meet the needs of different specialties and countries, regions, vendors and healthcare institutions.

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The fact that an organization is permitted to produce Extensions does not imply a seal of approval of the quality of Extensions that organization produces. Therefore a person or organization that authorizes or installs an Extension does so entirely at their own risk.

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Reference Sets

SNOMED CT has a broad clinical coverage and includes a depth of detail appropriate to a range of health care disciplines and clinical specialties. As a result, it has extensive content, different parts of which are needed in particular environments. The SNOMED CT design includes the Reference Set mechanism, which provides a standard way to refer to a set of SNOMED CT components and to add customized information to a component.

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• Language and dialects are represented as Language Reference Sets (see Chapter 11 - Translations and Language Preferences).
• Maps to and from other code systems and classifications are represented as Simple, Complex or Extended Map Reference Sets (see Chapter 12 - Mapping).
• Subsets of concepts, description or relationships are represented as Simple Reference Sets. The only information that a Simple Reference Set provides is that a component is part of this subset. Subsets may be used for a variety of general and specific purposes, some of which are identified in the following examples.
• Ordered lists and navigation hierarchies are represented as Ordered Reference Sets. These offer additional functionality to meet advanced variants of the requirements addressed by component subsets.

General use cases for subsets represented as Simple Reference Sets

• Excluding content
  
  • For example, the "Non-human Reference Set" excludes content which is only relevant in veterinary medicine.
• Including content
  
  • Limiting searches to content of specific interest to a specialty or specific data entry context
  • In some cases very limited subsets can be presented as dropdown lists or option boxes rather than searches.
• Prioritizing content
  
  • In some cases, a subset represents an initial priority list of options but the full content of SNOMED CT is searchable when required.
  • Note that Ordered Reference Sets support more flexible prioritization.
• Managing use of codes in messages and communications
  • A Simple Reference Set may represent a value set applicable to a particular field in a message.

Specific use cases for subsets represented as Simple Reference Sets

• National, jurisdictional or organizational requirements
  
  • Collecting particular minimum sets of data using specific codes.
• Regional variations in disease prevalence
  
  • Providing prioritized access to diseases that are prevalent in the region where data is being collected.
• Specialty and discipline variations
  
  • The frequency of use of particular concepts depends on the professional discipline and/or clinical specialty of the user. Specialty subsets can optimize data entry.
• Supporting data entry protocols
  
  • Different subsets of concepts are relevant at different points in different data entry protocols. Subsets represented as Simple Reference Sets can be used to restrict the available options to match the requirements at particular points in a data entry protocol.
    

Reference set development

Generic data structures for Reference Sets have been used to create a simple core structure that can be extended to meet a variety of requirements. This has been done rather than developing a complex and inextensible structure that can only be used in a finite and constrained number of ways to enforce editorial policy.

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