What is new in this release:

Patients Picklists

The Canadian Vaccine Catalogue (CVC) created Patients-Friendly and Clinicians Picklists for their use. To answer the National Vaccine Catalogue (NVC) request and a growing interest from the Public Health Surveillance Community (PHSC); new Patients Picklists were created for the vaccine concepts included in the PassiveHistoricalImmunizingAgentCode, the PassiveAdministeredImmunizingAgentCode, VaccineAdministeredCode and VaccineHistoricalCode susbsets. The Patients Picklists are all the friendly vaccine terms for patients use.

  • The Patients Picklists terms will be published as part of two Language Reference Sets in SNOMED CT CA Edition: Canada English Picklists Language Reference Sets: includes the Patients- terms that are understandable for patients in English
  • Canada French Picklists Language Reference Sets: includes the Patients terms that are understandable for patients in French

 They follow a defined pattern and guidelines. For further information, please check the Picklists Guidelines.

Valuesets scope definition and membership changes for the following subsets:

    • VaccineHistoricalNameCode
    • VaccineAdministeredTradeNameCode
    • PassiveHistoricalImmunizingAgentCode
    • PassiveAdministeredImmunizingAgentCode

The PHSC requested to review the above valuesets scopes to get all the tradename products for the vaccines in the tradename valueset, so the historical subset would only content generic terms. The same was requested for the immunoglobulin agents.

Note that the international or not marketed in Canada products follow the new rule above.

Adjustments to the above valueset scope definitions, have impacted the membership. Here is a summary of the changes:

  • 11 concepts were transferred from VaccineHistoricalNameCode to VaccineAdministeredTradeNameCode
  • 3 concepts were transferred from PassiveHistoricalImmunizingAgentCode to PassiveAdministeredImmunizingAgentCode

To visualize the new definitions, please refer to their respective pages :

Introduction

The current pages form the SNOMED CT Content Development Canadian Editorial Guidelines for Immunization. 

English Generic Editorial Guidelines

Canada Health Infoway (Infoway) publishes Canadian Editorial Guidelines. These guidelines should be consulted, along with the guidelines in the following pages prior to creating any new content for submission to Infoway.

Implementers should be familiar with the SNOMED International Editorial Guidelines prior to creating submissions for new content.


Immunization Content Development

The development of the Immunization content is based on different documents such as:

  1. When the product monograph information is either missing or unclear, other sources are consulted such as:  RxNorm, FDA DailyMed and the NHS drug dictionary terms, which handle similar products.  

  2. The Canadian Immunization Guide, published by Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) (and on-line updates) was the initial main reference document for most of the decisions around business requirements. The information can be found online at:
  • NOTE: PHAC does not assign manufacturers or marketing authorization holders (MAH) abbreviations for the passive agents. When a manufacturer or a MAH also produce vaccines, the PHAC abbreviation is used. For those manufacturers or MAH without a PHAC abbreviation: an abbreviation is assigned by Infoway. For more information refer to Immunization Home Page - Main Reference Documentation section.

Other references, available in French and English, were used as part of this work. It is expected that any future development will consider these:

A) Canadian Products

1- Product monograph

  1. a) For the current vaccine tradename
  • The product monograph is available through the Health Canada Drug Product Database Online Query Tool. 
  1. b) For discontinued vaccine tradename
  • When a product is discontinued the product monograph is removed from the manufacturer site and from the Health Canada Drug product database
  • If the requestor does not have the product monograph, Infoway can reach out to the proper Health Canada department to obtain an archived copy.
  1. c) For the current passive immunizing agent tradename
  • The product monograph is available through the Health Canada Drug Product Database Online Query Tool. 
  1. d) For discontinued passive immunizing agent tradename
  • When a product is discontinued the product monograph is removed from the manufacturer site and from the Health Canada Drug product database
  • If the requestor does not have the product monograph, Infoway can reach out to the proper Health Canada department to obtain an archived copy.

2- Vaccines and Passive Agents Abbreviations List

  1. a) For the current vaccine
  • The vaccine abbreviation is created by the Vaccine Vigilance Working Group (VVWG).
  1. b) For the current passive immunizing agent
  • The passive immunizing agent abbreviation is created by Infoway based on the Canadian Immunization Guide.
  • Infoway seeks guidance from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) representative. 
  1. c) Discontinued vaccine 
  1. d) Discontinued passive immunizing agent
  • The current passive immunizing agent abbreviation list created by Infoway can be used for discontinued passive immunizing agent

3- Marketing Authorization Holder (MAH) vs Manufacturer's abbreviation list 

a) For the current vaccine tradename

  • The manufacturer’s abbreviation is created by the Vaccine Vigilance Working Group (VVWG)

b) For the current passive immunizing agent tradename

  • The passive agent manufacturer’s abbreviation is created by Infoway, based on the VVWG principles.
  • Infoway seeks guidance from the Vaccine Supply Working Group (VSWG) representative.


B) Non-Canadian Products 


C) Special access and out of country products 

  • Stakeholders of the Public Health Community have requested to create terminology concepts for the WHO-authorized vaccines administered outside of Canada. This is to support use cases related to international travel back to/into Canada (e.g. snowbirds, newcomers, etc.). This will help with immunization surveillance and will allow to have a more comprehensive understanding of vaccination coverage rates in Canada. 
  • Special Access Products (SAPs) and international vaccines cannot be found on DPD. There is no MAH for these products as they are not licensed in Canada. The new pattern will be as follows:  
  • Pattern:    
    • FSN: Trade Name (qualifier) Strength Dose Form (real clinical drug)   
    • English PT: [PHAC Product Abbreviation] Trade Name (qualifier) (strength)   

Source of Truth  

Please refer to VaccineAdministeredTradeNameCode for more details. 


Content abbreviation

If an abbreviation is required as the guidelines but is not currently being used by the Public health surveillance experts, the abbreviation should not be created.

Example: ImmunizationRouteofAdministrationCode subset

  • If the route of administration does not have a commonly used abbreviation (once checked with CIRC, CCDD, VVWG to see if an abbreviation exists – we validate with expert advice before reaching out to the community at large or adding an abbreviation) it will not be created. 


New RFCs

All new immunization requests for change can be found on the Immunization RFC Dashboard. InfoRMS access, obtained via an InfoCentral account, is required.








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