2026-03-16 - Mental Health Disorders Project Group Meeting

1

Welcome and introductions

Jan

2

Summary from January meeting

Elaine

Elaine noted that the January meeting notes are available and invited any further feedback or additions.

Meeting Summary 28 Jan 2026Preview

3

Presenting the “Content Change & Quality Assurance Process”

Elaine

Elaine outlined the high-level change process being used for this work. She described five stages: identifying content needing attention, clarifying intended meaning and modelling approach, authoring and classification, secondary terminology review, and project group review before publication. She also noted that changes would go through validation and release processes and that transparency would be maintained through forums, briefing notes, early visibility notes, and communication with other relevant expert groups.

Mental Health Disorders Project Group Change ProcessPreview

4

Present structure of the mood disorders hierarchy

Piper

Piper reviewed the current bipolar disorder hierarchy and highlighted that the content shows varying levels of precoordination. She explained that the hierarchy contains combinations of disorder type, episode type, severity, psychotic features, temporal pattern, onset, and other clinical features. She also noted that DSM and ICD-11 are broadly aligned but differ in some details.

In discussion, the group agreed that SNOMED CT should support not only diagnostic labels but also more detailed clinical recording over time. Øyvind raised a key concern that severity applies to the episode, not the disorder, and that current wording can therefore create terminological problems. Ed also stressed the need to understand current user requirements and to minimise unnecessary disruption to existing content, especially where terms are already in use.

5

Bipolar pilot. Possible simplest scope of models

Hanne

Hanne presented early thinking on the minimum terminology needed if the hierarchy were aligned more closely with billable classifications while remaining clinically useful. She noted that the current content contains mixed levels of granularity and appears to derive from different source structures. ICD-10 was described as relatively simple and likely too limited on its own; ICD-11 and DSM provide broader structures with more detail and modifiers.

The group discussed a simplified “building block” approach based on core elements such as bipolar type, current or most recent episode, episode type, episode severity where relevant, and psychotic features. Øyvind cautioned that the simplified structure must not allow clinically impossible combinations such as a “severe hypomanic episode,” as that would reduce clinician confidence in the terminology.

6

Introducing to survey questions. Discussion. Allocate relevant recipients.

-Terminological questions

-Needs and possibilities

Jan

Jan
Piper

Hanne explained that the planned survey would likely have two parts: terminological questions relating to the hierarchy itself, and questions about implementation needs in member systems. The group discussed the importance of making the purpose of the survey clearer so that recipients understand why they are being asked and what kind of feedback is needed. Hanne showed the existing “agreements and questions” page in SNOMED Spaces, which will be expanded with further clinical questions.

7

Discussion

The discussion focused on making the work more clearly grounded in real use cases rather than appearing to be a purely theoretical or paper exercise. Ed emphasised the need to articulate why clinicians and implementers would need particular bipolar concepts in SNOMED CT. Piper clarified that the aim is not simply to recreate DSM or ICD within SNOMED CT, but to ensure that the hierarchy contains concepts clinicians genuinely need and that more granular clinical findings may also need to be addressed in a later phase.

Melvin suggested there may also be value in broader international discussion across related ontology and phenotype initiatives.

8

Meeting schedule

Elaine

The group discussed using time at the April Vienna business meeting to continue this work. A late May meeting was considered, but 25 May conflicted with holidays, so 1 June was agreed as the next meeting date. A specific time would be circulated separately.