Open brianmackenna opened 3 years ago
The termbrowser knows that 19722511000001105 (Atorvastatin 20mg chewable tablets sugar free) is a 108600003 (Product containing atorvastatin) because 108600003 is the dm+d code for the Atorvastatin VTM.
@brianmackenna have you done any work to see whether all dm+d VTMs are in SNOMED?
No
These SNOMED Drug Extension User Support Group has some useful documents and presentations that might be useful for when we get to this.
It would also be good to consider #525 if we do a comprehensive job on this issue.
I guess the difference between using the SNOMED-CT hierarchy in this case and VTMs is that if you want a robust "all statins" codelist algorithm then "HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor-containing product" is the key concept. If you a priori know all the VTMs that are statins then you can you use the VTM table, but what happens when a new statin comes to market?
It also lets you drill up to things like "Antilipemic agent". Questions like "what proportion of prescribing of lipid-lowering drug prescribing is statins?" that are currently most easily answered by comparing prescribing in various bits of the BNF hierarchy can be answered in dm+d by bringing in the snomed hierarchy.
In #176 I have recorded some notes. Although NHS dm+d exists as a standalone comprehensive reference source it actually is the local UK extension of SnoMed. We can utilise the hierarchies of snomed to support categorisation and building codelists. As we know Snomed is quite extensive and complex, some of the categories don't actually make sense to me however using the East Kent browser and the Australian Shrimp browser it looks like it will be very useful.
Using Atorvastatin 20mg chewable tabs and taking the ancestors displayed on EK browser here are some examples and uses of the SnoMed hierarchy.