A subset is a set of members all of which are members of another set (from set theory in mathematics), but generally, in clinical terminologies, it is a set of concepts or terms taken from a larger set of terms or concepts
Subsets can be grouped into categories. The categories listed below are different ways of looking at subsets and are not mutually exclusive:
These subsets types can be created by many methods, but here are a few commonly used:
pan Canadian Subset Maintenance
Infoway has many subsets that have been developed over time by Canadians for Canadians. These “fit for use” subsets are intended to be a pan-Canadian “starter set” of content. The subsets are maintained by Infoway, published in the Terminology Gateway. The pan-Canadian Subsets may contain content from international terminologies and content specific to Canada, which is dependent on the international version. The pan-Canadian subsets are reviewed on an annual basis, SNOMED CT subsets updated are aligned to the release of SNOMED CT Canadian edition releases.
Additional Terminology Subsets
Infoway supports organizations and Jurisdictions to publish their Terminology Artefacts on the Terminology Gateway. Once published, jurisdictions are requested to maintain their subsets as part of the Infoway Maintenance Cycle.
These subsets may be leveraged by other organizations and jurisdictions to support interoperability EHR solutions in their organization or jurisdiction.
The subsets developed are vendor-neutral, they support interoperability and decrease the cost of creating and maintaining a new subset.
Canada Health Infoway Inc. (Infoway) has created the SC code systems (SCPQUAL, SCPTEMP, SCPTYPE) (the "SC Code Systems") to address local requirements in Canada. SC was an abbreviation for "Standards Collaborative"
Permission is granted to users who agrees to these Terms of Use ("User"), without payment of license fees or royalties, to use, copy, or distribute the SC Code Systems (in all formats in which it is distributed by Infoway) for any commercial or non-commercial purpose, subject to the following terms and conditions:
New versions are created as per stakeholder requirements and formal requests
Versions are identified by release date using the YYYYMMDD date format
New versions are created as per stakeholder requirements and formal requests.
Versions are identified by release date using the YYYYMMDD date format
A value set is a uniquely identifiable set of valid concepts or terms, where any concept or term representation can be tested to determine whether or not it is a member of the value set.
A value set is typically used to represent the possible values of a coded data element in an information model. The members of a value set may represent concepts using either simple codes or post coordinated expressions or terms.
There are a number of use cases for value sets, including constraining the permitted values for elements in a communication specification, specifying the values in a picklist on a user interface and defining the required values to use for reporting. Value sets may range from a simple flat list of codes from a single code system to an unbounded hierarchical set drawn from multiple code systems.
Value sets containing only SNOMED CT components may be represented as SNOMED CT reference sets. for reference please visit Subsets, Value Sets and Reference Sets
Please refer to the Naming convention for pan-Canadian Reference sets and Value sets.pdf document for detailed rules for consistent naming of pan-Canadian reference sets and value sets.