Introduction
The current pages form the English Generic Editorial Guidelines, which apply as a baseline to the other Domain specific Guidelines. They have been reviewed against the latest version of the SNOMED International Editorial Guidelines to ensure alignment between the guidelines. The Editorial Guidelines describe editorial policies regarding the purpose, scope, boundaries, requirements, concept model, hierarchies, terming, and other policies related to the content in SNOMED CT®. These are primarily intended to guide those who are responsible for editing SNOMED CT content and those creating extensions. They also provide stakeholders with compliance criteria for making a successful request for change (RFC) submission to add new content to either the Canadian Edition or the International Edition of SNOMED CT.
These documents provide the latest decisions for the different use cases encountered to date. It should be noted that guidelines are working documents which continue to evolve over time as medicine and health sciences evolve and new cases use cases are accommodated. Stakeholders are encouraged to consult these pages regularly since as Infoway will update them as required and will republish.
Canada health Infoway (Infoway) has developed these Editorial Guidelines as the English Generic Editorial Guidelines. They are based on the SNOMED International SNOMED CT Editorial Guide. A French Editorial Guideline called: Guide des règles éditoriales et terminologiques - Développement de contenu SNOMED CT® en français is also available to French speaking stakeholders. These guidelines cover the common and frequent set of rules that apply to most terminology content that must be followed when submitting a RFC to Infoway through the Infoway Request Management System (InfoRMS).
The current pages form the English Generic Editorial Guidelines, serve as the baseline to the other Domain specific guidelines. They have been reviewed against the latest version of the SNOMED International Editorial Guidelines to ensure alignment between the guidelines.
When creating new content, it is important to follow rules to assure consistency and quality. Infoway has developed several domain specific guides that augment the SNOMED International rules, avoid ambiguity and reflect the Canadian requirements. These are:
- SNOMED CT Content Development Canadian Editorial Guidelines for Microbiology
- SNOMED CT Content Development Canadian Editorial Guidelines for Immunization
- SNOMED CT Content Development Canadian Editorial Guidelines for Clinical Imaging Procedure
It is recommended that the Generic Canadian English Editorial Guidelines be reviewed first:
- This document explains what the concepts include and what the intent of use is of the different descriptions namely the Fully Specified Name a (FSN) and the Preferred Synonym (PS)
- This document includes a checklist that helps the requestor validate specific key points before submitting a RFC to Infoway
Then, refer to one or more of the above domain specific guides.
A QA Checklist provides requestors with a summary of the most important criteria to validate prior to submitting your request for change (RFC) to Infoway.
General Considerations
The Generic Canadian Editorial Guidelines apply to requests for new concepts and descriptions and requests for modification for SNOMED CT.
Where Canadian requirements are the same as SNOMED International, the baseline reference is SNOMED International SNOMED CT Editorial Guide. Where more specificity is required, it has been added into this document or to the Domain specific Guidelines.