Dear all,
Please find below early visibility of the upcoming changes to the SNOMED International Derivative release packages. These changes are targeted for roll-out during 2024, as part of the next release cycle of each of the Derivative products, and will have little to no impact on most users.
After consultation in 2023, SNOMED International are planning to implement changes to the format of the Derivative product packages, including Reference Sets and Maps such as GP/FP, ICNP, MedDRA, etc.
These Derivatives are solely single refsets/maps, and so don’t mean anything to end users without the supporting terms and other components from the International content. The nature of these products is therefore such that we necessarily create Derivative packages that are inherently dependent on the relevant International Edition content.
Previously, therefore, we have always created the metadata components (refset/module concepts, descriptions, relationships, etc) in the International Edition release packages, with the Derivative products being dependent on the relevant International content. Whilst this dependency on the International content would continue, the transition would include the metadata components in the Derivative packages themselves, rather than in the International Edition packages – this will involve:
- Inactivation (but not complete removal) of the current components in the International Edition
- Creation of the Metadata components in each of the Derivative release packages
The consensus is that moving the Metadata components into the Derivative packages will bring benefits to both the Derivative maintainers, and also to the end users who will no longer need to pull this particular data down from the dependent International Edition in order to use the Derivative products. It enables maintainers to move to a more efficient model of hosting the Derivative content in termServer branches, rather than importing Delta files from external tools.
Please review the above information and send any questions to “release@snomed.org”.
Kind regards,
Andrew Atkinson | Release Manager