The Observation vs. Condition Mapping Dilemma: Where do clinical findings belong?

Great question, @lokesh

We have a definition of Conditions and Observations, as you cited in your question, but no clear guidelines to unambiguously decide whether a finding belongs to one or the other. It is a hot topic in the Vocabularies and people have strong opinions on the matter.

Over the years, we have had many debates. The most recent decisions are

  1. Disturb domains as little as possible (if something is assigned a domain, let it stick, we do not want many changes in domain between releases, so the phenotypes stay stable).
  2. Use SNOMED tags more often for domain assignment (previously we worked a lot on the hierarchies trying to find the most suitable ancestor to assign the right domain to all of the descendants - didn’t work out).
  3. If the clinical fact is important and you know that you will be looking for it, it makes a lot of sense to put it in a ‘cleaner’ Condition domain.

You may want to check this topic. I also invite you to come to the Vocabulary WG sessions in our Teams, where we can discuss cases you have.

According to current state, Hepatomegaly is a condition (tagged ‘Disorder’ in SNOMED, we followed the logic), as well as a Common bile duct stricture. Most conditions are diagnosed with procedures, so the fact of the procedure performed does not rule out a condition domain. Eg. you performed an ECG, found some ST-elevations and concluded that patient had a myocardial infarction. Keep it as AMI in a condition domain and you are fine.

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