Moving from PLR to SNOMED codes?
This question was posed by our staff and many here at DOH were thinking the same thing.
It appears that APHL is now listing SNOMED codes along with PLR codes for sequencing. Is APHL sunsetting the PLR codes or will they continue to be updating them? My understanding from previous communications was that SNOMED was not interested in creating codes for sequencing results. When I search the national/international SNOMED code website for the sequencing SNOMED codes listed on the APHL spreadsheet, they are not found. Who is creating these SNOMED codes, where are they being maintained, how often are they updated, is there a publicly available SNOMED site (separate from the APHL spreadsheet) where these codes can be found by labs?
Thank you!
It appears that APHL is now listing SNOMED codes along with PLR codes for sequencing. Is APHL sunsetting the PLR codes or will they continue to be updating them? My understanding from previous communications was that SNOMED was not interested in creating codes for sequencing results. When I search the national/international SNOMED code website for the sequencing SNOMED codes listed on the APHL spreadsheet, they are not found. Who is creating these SNOMED codes, where are they being maintained, how often are they updated, is there a publicly available SNOMED site (separate from the APHL spreadsheet) where these codes can be found by labs?
Thank you!
APHL obtained a SNOMED extension namespace that is embedded in ALL the SNOMED CT concept IDs we are creating - we are in the process of updating the PLR code system in PHINVADS to include both the legacy codes (where applicable, as we no longer assign those to new concepts) and the SNOMED CT conceptIDs using the APHL namespace extension. We hope to have that completed in the next week (not sure how long it will take PHNVADS once we submit them) - the plan is to keep publishing them in PHINVADS every 6 months for now. APHL is now using a terminology server, and once we have all the kinks worked out we think we could potnetially use it to publish these on a more continous basis - but that is still out in the future (maybe be 2023? - fingers crossed).
We are still debating about which the code system ID to use in the code system field (OBX-5.3 / and potentially SPM-4.3 or also PID-35.3 for rabies), because essentially they are still "PLR" codes, just the code is no longer expressed in the legacy format of "PLR<nnnn>", but that is one of the reasons many PHAs wanted to migrate to the SNOMED CT concpet ID so that they wouldn't have to deal with "PLR" and could use "SCT" essentially they are SNOMED CT concepts, just not part of the international or US edition, so not searchable in the IHTDSO browser. This will be a topic on tomorrow's Open ELR call, too, so please brign your thoughts.
Michelle