The Animal Names Terminology Subset of SNOMED CT®

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The Animal Names Terminology Subset of SNOMED CT

• Suzanne L. Santamaria, DVM, MS Candidate

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Identification
Integration
Importance increases
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Identification of animals is vital

• Animal name foundation of medical record
• Mixture of Linnaean and common
• Linnaean terminology for scientific names
• Class Aves, Bos taurus
• Common animal names used by caretakers
• Bird, cattle, psittacine bird
• Ambiguity in animal names remains
• Cattle Bos taurus? Cattle Beefalo? Cow?
• Cattle any animal of subfamily Bovinae that is
  commonly domesticated, varies by country of
  origin and regulatory authority staring over the
  fence.

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Identification of animals is vital

• Electronic recording transmission increasing
• Free text entries problematic
• Incompatible standard lists problematic
• Need common terminology
• between systems and users
• integrates both Linnaean and common name
• SNOMED-CT determined suitable

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Extending SNOMED for veterinary use

• Veterinary content in SNOMED core is NOT
  sufficient for clinical or regulatory use
• SNOMED core updates slowly (q. 6 mo)
• Veterinary content is low priority
• Our Solution? Extension
• Our lab maintains a veterinary extension
• Currently used by USDA, AAHA, AAEP

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Implementation in veterinary medicineSubset
mechanism

• ALL of SNOMED too large for any given use
• Different groups prefer different phrases
• Our Solution? Subset
• Update subset as often as desired
• Our lab maintains numerous subsets
• USDA Breeds, species, specimens, lab tests, etc.
  
• AAHA, AAEP Diagnostic terms

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Animal names terminology is a starting point

• Cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, dogs, cats, horses,
  birds, aquatic animals, zoo animals, wildlife
• Classified by Linnaean ranking, common name,
  production use, sex, etc.
• Integrates with SNOMED core
• Advantages of SNOMED
• Subsets allow tailoring for groups
• Concepts will be added and removed as needs change

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Example Laying chicken
Concept
Formal definitions
Polyhierarchy
Descriptions
Text definition Female chicken which produces
egg for human food consumption
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Descriptions enhance utility
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Each concept has a set of relationships that
define it

• Is A relationships form a polyhierarchy
• Laying chicken
• is a subtype of Gallus gallus AND
• is a subtype of Food animal
• Other relationships give details
• Laying chicken
• quality of female AND
• role of producing eggs for human food

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Animal hierarchy adaptable
Subfamily Bovinae
SNOMED core/extension relationship
Cattle
Bison bison x Bos taurus hybrid
Cattle as human food
Lactating cattle
Genus Bos
Bos taurus
Bos javanicus
Limousin cattle breed
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Example Animal and hierarchy below
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Example Dairy bull
Formal definitions
Subset Preferred Description
SNOMED Preferred Description
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Example of text definitions
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SNOMED adopted by many organizations
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Animal names terminology used by some
organizations
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Demo

• VTSL SNOMED browser of animal names subset at
  http//vtsl.vetmed.vt.edu/

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Questions?
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Medical concept in SNOMED Pneumonia due to
Streptococcus
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SNOMEDs power is in its data structure

• Concept
• Synonym handling (descriptions)
• Polyhierarchy
• Relational/defining mechanism
• Text definitions, translations
• History mechanism
• Extension
• Subsets

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SNOMED is a concept based terminology

• Concept an idea which conveys a single,
  unambiguous, reproducible meaning.
• Concepts must have a definable meaning
  (non-vagueness)
• Concepts cannot have more than one meaning
  (non-ambiguity)
• Meanings correspond to no more than one concept
  (non-redundancy)

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SNOMED contains unique and permanent concept
identifiers

• Meaningless numeric identifier
• Guaranteed unique within SNOMED and never reused

• Once created, the meaning of a concept does not
  change
• Concepts can be retired but are never
  deleted/removed!

These things maintain the integrity of YOUR
information
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Introducing Animal Names subset

• Animal names Linnaean and common
• SNOMEDs structure facilitates information
  organization
• SNOMED adopted by others
• Animal names subset specialized for CVM
• Starting point for an animal names terminology
  for CVM

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Features of Animal Names subset

• FDA CVM chooses
• preferred names/phrases
• whats allowed
• how terms are defined
• what to distribute
• Subset grows gracefully over time
• Subset will align with other ontologies used in
  biomedical and clinical research
• Subset can be divided
• Approved animal in SPL
• MUMS species
• Adverse event reporting