UMLS Enhanced VA/KP Problem List Subset of SNOMED CT

The Veterans Health Administration and Kaiser Permanente (VA/KP) Problem List Subset of SNOMED is one of the controlled terminologies used for Structured Product Labeling (SPL). SPL is a document markup standard approved by Health Level Seven (HL7) and adopted by FDA as a mechanism for exchanging medication information. This set of SNOMED terms and codes is freely reusable worldwide without licensing or intellectual property restrictions. The subset is available for download on the NCI’s EVS public ftp site: ftp://ftp1.nci.nih.gov/pub/cacore/EVS/FDA

A UMLS subset that consists of all UMLS concepts containing the active SNOMED concepts in the Problem List Subset is available for download from the UMLSKS. This subset includes contents from SNOMED CT and other source vocabularies with no additional licensing restrictions. All non-English, obsolete and suppressible contents are excluded. Another UMLS subset containing MedDRA, which has additional licensing restriction, is also created and available for download from the UMLSKS. Note that the UMLS subsets are based on the UMLS view of synonymy, which may not agree completely with that of SNOMED. Therefore, there will be some SNOMED concepts in the UMLS subsets that do not appear in the Problem List Subset e.g. some SNOMED concepts that are not in the Problem List Subset but are considered to be synonymous (in the UMLS view) with some SNOMED concepts in the Problem List Subset.

The purpose of the UMLS enhanced subsets is to facilitate users of the Problem List Subset to make use of resources available in the UMLS, without the need of downloading and installing the full UMLS. One possible use of the UMLS enhanced subsets is to find synonyms for SNOMED concepts in the Problem List Subset. Another possible use is to generate mappings from SNOMED concepts to other standard terminologies (e.g. ICD9CM, MeSH, and MedDRA). Users should always refer to the original Problem List Subset as the authentic source. The UMLS subsets are not intended to be an alternative source of the Problem List Subset and should always be used in conjunction with the latter.

Last reviewed: 26 January 2007
Last updated: 26 January 2007
First published: 15 December 2006
Metadata| Permanence level: Permanent: Dynamic Content