Clinical context represtation in terminology based and information model based approaches

Using SNOMED CT
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Hello all,

My name is Dharinisri, and I am a Master’s student in Health Informatics at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. I am currently conducting my Thesis. I am new to this forum and very glad to join this community.

My research focuses on how clinical context is represented in Electronic Health Records, specifically comparing:

  • Terminology-based approaches ( SNOMED CT Situation with Explicit Context)

  • Information model–based approaches ( openEHR, HL7 FHIR, and other structured EHR models)

I am particularly interested in understanding the strengths, limitations, semantic precision, scalability, and interoperability implications of representing context in terminology expressions versus in information model structures.

I would greatly appreciate insights from this community on:

  1. Practical experiences using SNOMED CT Situation with Explicit Context

  2. Situations where terminology-based context representation works well (or does not)

  3. Organisational or technical constraints that influence the choice between terminology and information model approaches

  4. Future directions for improving context representation in SNOMED CT

If you are willing to share experiences, references, or even participate in a short discussion, I would be very grateful.

Thank you in advance for your time and expertise.

Kind regards,
Dharinisri

1 Like
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Hi Dharinisri, welcome to the community :waving_hand:

This is a very relevant and timely thesis topic, and I’m really interested to see the experiences and perspectives others will share here.

I also wanted to point you to two SNOMED CT resources that may be useful for your work:

Best of luck with your thesis, and I look forward to following the discussion.

Kind regards,

Anne Højen

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Hi Anne,

Thank you for taking the time to point me toward these materials. They will be very helpful for framing the practical aspects of my work, especially around context handling and transformation.

I appreciate your support and look forward to contributing to the discussion.

Kind regards,
Dharinisri MS

1 Like
4

Hi @Dharinisri! So glad that you found these forums, I was just about to suggest you to reach out with questions here. I was just wondering if Simplex User Group is the best group for your topic since Simplex is a tool for handling extensions. @ahoejen (or any forum guru) do you know a more relevant group where there is a bigger chance for interaction? :slight_smile:

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Hi @ehulten Emma :blush:,

Thank you very much for your suggestion , that makes a lot of sense. I wasn’t entirely sure whether the Simplex User Group was the most appropriate space for this topic.

If that is not the best fit, would it be appropriate for me to post this in the General group instead?

@ahoejen, could you kindly advise on the most relevant group for this discussion?

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HI @ahoejen,

Thank you for pointing these guides out. I wasn’t aware of the one regarding SNOEMD CT context.

There seems to be a little bit of a discrepancy between what the Guide for Context representation presents on this topic as compared to the editorial guide.

SNOMED CT and Context | Implementation Guides Context Representation Implementation Guide | SNOMED International Documents

VS

The context guide doesn’t say anything about the “Default context” for Clinical Finding and Procedure. Should the context representation guide be updated to better align with the editorial guide?

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@Dharinisri Maybe your questions would get more attention in either the General group (https://forums.snomed.org/c/general/4) or Using Snomed CT Forum (https://forums.snomed.org/c/snomed/11)? Try!

1 Like
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Hi @Dharinisri ,

Welcome to the community and thanks for the questions to spur further discussion.

I’ve moved your topic into the Using SNOMED CT forum, which is a better place for your questions and may get a wider audience.

Thanks,

Rory

1 Like
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Hi @rdavidson ,

Thank you so much for moving it and guiding it to the right place , I really appreciate it :slightly_smiling_face: . I hope the discussion will attract more perspectives there.

Best,
Dharinisri MS

2 Likes
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Hi John.

Thank you for identifying this issue. We are currently having some conversations about aligning these. I will let you know once we have an update.

Best, Anne