Code

A Code is a non-encryptable root-level entity that represents a concept from a medical codification system (e.g., SNOMED-CT, LOINC), or an internal codification. Codes support versioning and multilingual content.

Properties

Below you will find an explanation of the most commonly used properties in the entity that are not among the shared fields. For a full list, check the reference documentation (🚧).

id

Uniquely identifies the Code. Differently from all the other entities, where the id should be a UUID v4, the id of the Code should be type|code|version, where type, code, and version are the values of the homonymous properties.

type

The type of the Code is the classification system where the code come from (e.g. SNOMED-CT, LOINC). All the codes from the same source should have the same type.

For internal codes, you can choose any value you prefer.

code

A value that uniquely identifies the code inside the system. For example, the illness "Besnier's prurigo" is uniquely defined by the code 200773006 in SNOMED and by the code L20.0 in ICD-10.

version

The version of the code, useful if you want to update a Code in your system (e.g. because an update in label or meaning) while also keeping the outdated version.

As for the format, you can use either semantic versioning or any version format that can be ordered lexicographically (e.g. the date of the publishing of the version in YYYYMMDD format).

label

Associates an ISO language code and a human-readable description of the code in that language. The label and the search terms will be taken into account when searching codes by label.

region

A collection of regions where the code is applicable. It may be the ISO code of the country or any code that can define a region in a country.

searchTerms

Associates an ISO language code with a collection of words in that language that are related to the code. The label and the search terms will be taken into account when searching codes by label.