2025-10-21 - CMAG Meeting

Welcome

@Monica Harry

• Attendees list

• Introductions 

• Note:

  • The meeting will be recorded (including an AI summary) for the purpose of creating minutes. The recording of meeting will be available online until minutes approved. Once approved the recording will be deleted.

  • Joining the meeting by accepting the Zoom prompt declares that you have no objection to your comments being recorded

Administration

@Monica Harry

• Apologies

• Declarations of Interest

• Approval of minutes of 2025-08-27 - CMAG MeetingPreview - approved

  • https://forums.snomed.org/t/cmag-august-2025-meeting-minutes/345 - discussion topic to capture additional feedback on minutes

• Questions on new Spaces and Forum sites

• Reminder of Joint Advisory Group meeting: Wednesday 22nd October 1330-1700 CEST- local Antwerp time ( 11:30-1500 UTC) 

  • Location: Room: Darwin Hall

Business proposal for backlog requests

@Monica Harry

• Netherlands - significant number of diagnosis and procedure concepts. Elze de Groot to provide a high level summary on the areas the content is located in.

• Sweden - has been doing a mapping project relating to an interventions classification. There will be a significant number of requests from this - should be able to provide a summary by end of the year.

• Australia - has some content for promotion, with the most pressing area being surgical procedures. Some of it is primitive at this point.

  • They also have significant interest in the lateralised imaging work given content requirements for that, together with interventional radiology.

Lateralised imaging extension content 

@Monica Harry

• CMAG Lateralised Imaging SubprojectPreview

• Analysis work planned for last quarter 2025 - first quarter 2026. This subproject is the priority over the content tracker subproject.

• Sweden interested in contributing to review.

• Member tab - comments on areas of interest

• UK have provided the list of the core concepts they have lateralised.

• Monica Harry will have the lateralised version of these compared with the listing we currently have. Those that do not duplicate what is currently in the subproject list could also be considered for promotion.

Administrative statuses

@Monica Harry

• https://projects.jira.snomed.org/browse/IHTSDO-775

• CMAG members to review and comment.

  • Initial comments noted that some concepts e.g., 183644000 |Surgical follow-up (finding)| would be used as a reason for encounter.

    • Sweden has some communication on this type of content and will look to share this.

  • Cathy Richardson will set up a forum post to gather feedback.

Content tracker update

@Monica Harry

• CMAG Content Tracker Prioritisation SubprojectPreview

• Members could start by identifying their top 5 tracker priorities. Work will be done under QI.

• The lateralised imaging subproject is a priority over this subproject

• CMAG members currently have issues accessing the IHTSDO JIRA Content Tracker. Issue to be looked into.

National Content Development Activities Update

Group

• https://forums.snomed.org/t/national-content-development-updates-for-the-october-2025-meeting/346

• Given time constraints the updates provided were not talked through.

Current Briefing Notes

@Monica Harry

• Briefing Notes - discussed

• https://forums.snomed.org/t/inactivation-of-sex-specific-sex-qualified-procedure-concepts/409 discussed. Some concepts on the list are valid. For example, a procedure using an assessment scale where the name includes male/female, anatomical differences between sexes impacts the procedure. List to be reviewed and briefing note updated.

National Content Modelling Forum

@Monica Harry

• Topic questions to be added: https://forums.snomed.org/c/groups/content-managers-ag/34

• This forum has been broadened and will now be called National Content Questions. Anything related to content that is relevant for other countries can be asked here.

2026 CMAG Work Plan

@Monica Harry

• CMAG 2026 Work PlanPreview

• CMAG members will be asked to review the work plan and comment. A forum post will be created to capture the comments.

Social Care Project Wrap Up

• Group asked in relation to any final comments.

• Norway has added some to their ICNP refset and suggested that ICN may also be interested. Cathy Richardson to contact ICN regarding this.

Quality of Mental Health Content

• Norway raised the need to update the mental health content as it’s significantly impacting users given the issues with current content e.g., outdated, sometimes offensive, drawn from both ICD and DSM. This topic was discussed at the Member Forum and it’s understood that several countries are impacted. Norway is willing to contribute to an international effort in this area.

• Australia has also seen the same issues raised.

• Monica raised the potential for a first step - a subproject to clean up the specific areas raised. This could be prior to looking at the potential for a model so the content is useable. If we have access to clinical resources and it’s a member requirement we can allocate resources. Belgium expressed an interest in contributing to work. Monica requested an email on this interest. Ireland is also interested in this, they have current work going on in this area.

• Piper raised previous work where subhierachies were examined to identify where content came from e.g. DSM3, DSM4, ICD. Is willing to share the template used for this.

• Canada has some requests in this area (current and old) that may tie into this work. The old requests were rejected.

• Summary of discussion points:

  • Content is a mixture of DSM and ICD from various versions of these classifications. The use of these classifications also varies in different countries. There is a need to accommodate both. The UK also noted in their work some comes from sources outside of those classifications e.g. manuals.

  • There are potential duplicates given terms change over time and the same disorder with a different term may have been added. There are also situations where there has been changes in meaning over time and the newer terming is a replacement not a duplicate.

  • The primitive nature of the content adds to the issue and creation of a model would be of value but this would be challenging given the type of content. Some content cannot be defined.

  • Mental health diagnoses can carry significant social implications and patients can be closer to the terming that is used. Some terms will be valid but the terming in SNOMED may not be.

  • Terming also needs to be considered with a clear FSN to represent intended meaning. Potentially we need more specific editorial guidance for mental health terms.

  • The finding/disorder issue can also add to the challenge. Both can be needed. There is a need to distinguish between feeling depressed and having clinical depression. Belgium raised the previous work where Finding concepts were inactivated as duplicates of Disorders where given the discussion, both are required. This could be reviewed.

Assessment Scores and Staging Scales

@Piper Ranallo PhD

• MABH CRG seeking support for work on assessment scores and staging scales. This area of work is not currently on the 5 year strategic plan. Please see attached documents for the details.

• The discussion focused on modelling aspects - groupers, use of variant/version, terming for the original version and how to handle changes over time.

• Rob McClure raised the potential to align with LOINC in this area, as it will show up in the ontology. The LOINC work done on the Gravity Project in relation to survey instruments could also be leveraged.

• Christine Spisla (Nursing CRG co-chair) advised nurses use assessment scales so this topic is of interest to them.

Next meeting

@Monica Harry

• The time and date for the next meeting was not discussed on the call.