Normalize using SNOMED-CT

Question

I wanted to understand the puropse of using SNOMED-CT for normalization of clinical terms.

Let's say I have a criteria/statement like

Gender is Male

My question is if SNOMED-CT is used for normalizing both Gender and Male OR just one of them like

Sex is M OR
Gender is M

Answer 1

I'm not sure I quite follow the question but this might help. SNOMED CT can repressent the same information in multiple ways. For example left sided hip scan can be repressented using a single concept (426100003 | Ultrasound scan of left hip |) or gluing a laterality of left to the concept for ultrasound of hip (the actual expression is a little complex here, I can post it if you need).

However when doing some operations, e.g. subsumption tests, the form needs to be consistent. Thus there is are standardised forms and standard algorithms to get to them, I nearly always use the Long Normal Form.

So in short the normal form of an expression is a standard repressentation of that expression which can be transformed to from other repressentations.

More information can be found if you search "Normal form" on the technical reference guide: http://ihtsdo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/doc/en_gb/tig.html

Answer 2

Both. It includes terms for the abstract concept of "Gender", the notion of a "Finding of biological sex", and the concept of a specific finding like "Male":

http://browser.ihtsdotools.org/?perspective=full&conceptId1=365873007 http://browser.ihtsdotools.org/?perspective=full&conceptId1=429019009 http://browser.ihtsdotools.org/?perspective=full&conceptId1=248153007

However, please note that the concept of Gender is different from Sex.

Answer 3

Supporting the answer above but from a different perspective Normalization using SNOMED CT allows computer to - Define a single set of representations (i.e. you don't have to map from M or F) that can be used for information exchange and understood in all healthcare settings irrespective of the geographic or healthcare domain. - These representations are used as rules for queries in clinical decision support (for example). Where these rules are developed by a professional body (such as e.g. pharmacists) the rules can be shared irrespective of your legacy system and used consistently across all products. At least that is the intention.
This supports safe clinical practice.