March 26, 2007

This directory contains data file releases and other materials supporting the
Veterans Health Administration and Kaiser Permanente (VA/KP) Problem List
Subset of SNOMED, 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.  Fuller information on SPL is available at:

        http://www.fda.gov/oc/datacouncil/spl.html.

This set of SNOMED terms and codes is freely reusable worldwide without
licensing or intellectual property restrictions.

Contents:

This directory holds the most recent Problem List Subset data files:

        ProblemListSubset.txt        (tab-delimited text)
        ProblemListSubset.xls        (Microsoft Excel)
        ProblemListSubset.zip        (zipped Excel)
	ReleaseNotes.txt             (notes on this release)

The Archive subdirectory holds both current and earlier releases, with names
indicating the year/month/day of the Subset version:

        ProblemListSubset_2006-04-02.txt        (tab-delimited text)
        ProblemListSubset_2006-04-02.xls        (Microsoft Excel)
        ProblemListSubset_2006-04-02.zip        (zipped Excel)

The Browser directory contains a freely redistributable application for
browsing the Subset data.

Background:

The data files provide text, Microsoft Excel, and zipped Excel versions of
the same data.  Each provides SNOMED ID and Fully Specified Name (FSN), in
columns A and B, for terms to be used to code medical conditions in the
Highlights section of the new drug label. The March 2, 2006 files contained
only two columns.  Starting with the May 6, 2006 files, 3 new columns were
added to describe Date Of Change, Change Type, and Subset Status.  Optimal
structure and coding are still under evaluation.

As of Sept. 1, 2006, this subset has been based on the July 2006 version of
SNOMED.  It will be updated as newer versions of SNOMED become available.  It
will also be updated more frequently as new terms are requested by the user
community, and is expected to grow rapidly in this initial period.

EVS is working actively with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to
develop and support controlled terminology for Structured Product Labeling
(SPL).  NCI Thesaurus and several other terminologies used in the standard
are available via the NCI Terminology Browser.

Related National Library of Medicine Terminology Sets:

In December 2006, the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) created two new
subsets of the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Metathesaurus, each
containing the Problem List Subset together with terms from other sources.
The NLM intends to update this as the Problem List Subset and the UMLS are
updated.  Fuller description and access are available for those with UMLS
licenses at the following Web address:

http://umlsks.nlm.nih.gov/kss/servlet/Turbine/template/admin,user,KSS_login.vm