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Table of Contents: 2023 MARCH–APRIL No. 451

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March 2023 SNOMED CT US Edition Available for Download

March 2023 SNOMED CT US Edition Available for Download. NLM Tech Bull. 2023 Mar-Apr;(451):b3.

2023 March 03 [posted]

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is pleased to announce the March 2023 US Edition of SNOMED CT is available for download. This release contains 398 new active concepts specific to the US Extension. The March 2023 US Edition of SNOMED CT is based on the content published in the December 2022 SNOMED CT International Edition and includes any SNOMED CT COVID-19 Related Content published in the December 2022 International Edition.

Please note:

Announcement - Changes in the March 2023 US Edition Release


  1. Notice of changes to the US Edition Release package and Transitive Closure Resources package naming convention

    As of the March 2023 Release of the US Edition onwards, the RF2 package and the Transitive Closure Resources package naming convention will be changing from:

    • SnomedCT_USEditionRF2_PRODUCTION_[date]T[time]Z.zip
    • SnomedCT_TransitiveClosureResourcesRF2_PRODUCTION_[date]T[time]Z.zip

    ...to the following:

    • SnomedCT_ManagedServiceUS_PRODUCTION_US1000124_[date]T[time]Z.zip
    • SnomedCT_ManagedServiceUSTransitiveClosure_PRODUCTION_US1000124_[date]T[time]Z.zip

    For the March 2023 US Edition Release, for example, the RF2 package and the Transitive Closure Resources package will be called:

    • SnomedCT_ManagedServiceUS_PRODUCTION_US1000124_20230301T120000Z.zip
    • SnomedCT_ManagedServiceUSTransitiveClosure_PRODUCTION_US1000124_20230301T120000Z.zip

    Note: The change to the naming convention only affects the zip package name and the top two folders in the unzipped package. No other folder or file name contained in the release package will be impacted.


  2. Notice of changes to the US Edition Module Dependency Refset Specifications

    There has been discussion on the Module Dependency Refset Specifications (MDRS) records regarding dependencies not being transitive, meaning that they cannot be inferred from a chain of dependencies. For example, if module-A depends on module-B and module-B depends on module-C, the dependency of module-A on module-C must still be stated explicitly. This has not been resolved by SNOMED International, as their recent deliberations regarding the possibility of changing the specifications to make MDRS records transitive have concluded that so far, the business case for doing so is not strong enough. Therefore, the US Edition of SNOMED CT still, in theory, has missing MDRS records which should explicitly call out the dependency of the ICD-10CM map module on both Core International modules. As the new automated MDRS functionality also generates these records, it was decided to allow their introduction until SNOMED International decides to change the RF2 specifications. These records have been included in the September 2022 US Edition release by allowing the automated MDRS generation code to add 2 new records to the US Edition MDRS, explicitly calling out the dependency of the ICD-10CM map module on both Core International modules:

    • > e37cecd9-329a-4bf2-96eb-befefd9c45c3 20220901 1 5991000124107 900000000000534007 900000000000207008 20220901 20220630
    • > 5b163b38-a5e6-4430-aaaa-82663c4bca4a 20220901 1 5991000124107 900000000000534007 900000000000012004 20220901 20220630

To download the above releases, you must agree to the UMLS Metathesaurus License and have a UMLS Terminology Services login. To learn more about the license and to sign up for an account, please see the SNOMED CT License page for additional information. Any inquiries may be sent to NLM Customer Support.

To subscribe to the NLM SNOMED CT announcements listserv, visit the following link:

https://list.nih.gov/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A0=SNOMEDCT-ANNOUNCES-L

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