Descriptions of international concepts that go inactive after upgrading to the latest SCTINT release do not automatically go inactive. This is the case at least for our local French, Dutch and German translations.
These are not visible on the browser (unless inactive concepts are selected to be displayed), so there’s little risk for most users of running into them. However, since most software vendors work with RF2 files, there could be a risk of some developer reading the files incorrectly and assuming that all active descriptions belong to active concepts.
Have you considered inactivating active descriptions of inactive concepts? Do you see any other potential risks? Or do you see risks in inactivating them?
Hi Pedro, there is a risk in inactivating those descriptions. These concepts may be recorded in historic data. If you remove all active descriptions, it leaves no human-readable term with which to display the historic concept to the end-user.
I think a terminologist should be able to assume that a software vendor will import the RF2 files correctly. It may not always be the case, but ensuing problems are more effectively solved by improving the software than by bending maintenance policy.
This is a question Katrien asked at least two years ago and the answer stays the same. If one inactivates all the descriptions of a concept, that concept becomes unreadable for a human. You need active descriptions to be able to read what the identifiers of inactivated concepts are about. If you have stored your descriptions together with the SCTID in your EHR, that’s not an issue for past entries, you can still display them (though without all the synonyms) but if you have not done that and rely on the terminology server to display your old EHR entries based on the SCTID, you’re doomed.
If you need to display past concepts to update a mapping, you’re doomed. For example say I have a local mapping depending on the BE Edition/extension, your update will come before mine so when I want to update my mapping to publish my next release dependent on your new national edition, I won’t be able to read the inactivated concepts I need to replace in my mapping, because you will have deactivated their descriptions in your lateste release. In other words, you need active descriptions on inactive concepts.
It can pose a problem if people create simple refsets/value sets based on descriptions and not on concepts but if my memory serves me well, only UK has done this, in the (long ago) past, and it’s not a recommended approach for implementation and use of SNOMED CT.