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:

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:

    1. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/canadian-immunization-guide.html(for English)
    2. https://www.canada.ca/fr/sante-publique/services/guide-canadien-immunisation.html(for French)
    3. Health Canada Drug Product Database online query
    4. PHAC Approved vaccines in Canada

 Health Canada Drug Product Database (DPD) product page

    • DPD is the source of truth for:

      • Company name: MAH

The MAH is the organization who distributes the vaccine in Canada. It may be different from manufacturing company. The MAH is the organization displayed in the COMPANY element in the Health Canada Drug Product Database (DPD) .

Note there is sometimes more than one (1) name used by a company. 

    • Product name: Tradename

Written as described in Health Canada Drug Product Database (DPD).

      • When creating of a new product that has the same product name as an existing one, additional information will be added to the Preferred Synonym to avoid confusion and decrease the patient safety risk.
        1. For example:  Gardasil (represents the HPV 4-valent trade name product) vs Gardasil 9 (represents the HPV 9-valent trade name product)
        2. Some products have the same trade name for both an adult and child presentation, or for administration to a specific group of patients (e.g.: patient on dialysis)

No qualifier is added to FSN since the FSN is already explicit and unambiguous because the strength is described as presentation strength. 

      • Exceptions: Special Access Products (SAP) are not on the DPD. For SAPs, the source for MAH is the Product Monograph (please see below for more details)
      • DPD is the source of truth, but the product monograph could be used if more detailed are required for the concept creation that are not available on DPD.
          1. For the current vaccine tradename and current passive immunizing agent tradename
            1. The product monograph is available through the Health Canada Drug Product Database Online Query Tool. 
          2. For discontinued vaccine tradename or discontinued passive immunizing agent tradename
            1. 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.

NOTE: 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.  


    • Vaccines and Passive Agents Abbreviations Lists


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

The table provided by the Adverse Event Following Immunization (AEFI) is the source of truth forMAH abbreviation

      • Table 1. Vaccine list
      • For example: The manufacturer abbreviation is SP for any of the following: Sanofi Pasteur Inc. or Sanofi Pasteur SA or Sanofi Pasteur Limite
      • The MAH (Supplier in SNOMED CT) concept will be created based on the DPD COMPANY name, but the MAH abbreviation will be the one that is part of the Vaccine list.

NOTE: PHAC does not assign marketing authorization holders (MAH) abbreviations for the passive agents. When a MAH also produce vaccines, the PHAC abbreviation is used. For those MAH without a PHAC abbreviation: an abbreviation is assigned by Infoway.

 

Special access and out of country products 

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

  • 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)   

  • It is possible to find reference information on the out of country products from the following organizations:


Content's abbreviation

If a concept’s abbreviation is required by a jurisdiction,  but is not currently being used by most of the Public health surveillance experts, therefore is not a panCanadian term, the abbreviation should not be created. See the example below.

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.,, obtained via an InfoCentral account, is required.







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