Community Consulation: Proposed increase to maximum description length (FSN & Synonyms)

Hello Modeling Advisory Group

We discussed at the October Conference in Atlanta, that the RF2 specification already allows for the maximum length of individual description types to be modified.  So increasing the current limit of FSN and Synonym length from 255 bytes to 4096 should not be considered a change to the spec.    However, it is highly likely that implementers will have coded database schema to the currently specified size, and so we need to give substantial notice before making this change in the International Edition.

To that end, we've prepared a Community Consultation page, along with the usual Google Form to receive feedback:  SNOMED International Proposal to Increase Description Length Limit, with a view to potentially making using of a longer term limit in the January 2025 International Edition, depending on the feedback received.

I assume that you are all in support of this change, especially since a couple of country extensions are already using FSN & SYN terms over 255 bytes in length, so there's no need for you to given individual feedback unless you have something particular to bring up.  But I would be grateful if you could forward this page to any implementers that you're aware of that might be affected by this change.

See you next week!

Best Wishes, Peter