ADVANCED NOTICE: Upcoming changes in the July 2021 International Edition

Dear all,
As per all previous announcements providing early visibility of the Concrete Domains proposal, SNOMED International are proceeding as planned with the introduction of the new Concrete Domains content in the July 2021 International Edition release package. Following on from the September 2020 and February 2021 technical previews of the impending Concrete Domains changes (for which no adverse feedback was received), SNOMED International are now implementing the changes in the July 2021 International Edition Production release. This contains drug concept strengths and counts expressed as concrete values in a new Relationships file. The RF2 Release package for July 2021 is therefore planned to incorporate the following changes:
• Inferred Relationship file changes:
o All relationships for values of strength and count for medical products inactivated
o All relationships for attributes of strength and count for medicinal products inactivated
o New relationships for new concept model data attributes of strength, count, product name, and supplier for medicinal products will be added
• Stated OWL Axiom file changes:
o Existing drug concept axioms updated to use concrete values
o Existing strength and count attribute types will be inactivated, replaced with new ones using the same FSNs.
• New Inferred "Relationship Concrete Values" files:
o New concrete values relationship files added to the RF2 package structure, containing all new relationships for values of strength and count for medical products:
 sct2_RelationshipConcreteValues_Delta_INT_20210731.txt
 sct2_RelationshipConcreteValues_Full_INT_20210731.txt
 sct2_RelationshipConcreteValues_Snapshot_INT_20210731.txt
• MRCM file changes:
o MRCM includes new rows to indicate that the new attribute types are expected to take a concrete domain - specifically numbers - as target values.

Please refer to the final July 2021 International Edition Release Notes (which will be released on 31st July 2021) for full details of the confirmed changes.

If you can foresee any critical issues with the transition plans, or have any questions regarding any of these upcoming changes, please contact SNOMED International immediately at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (and cc This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) with “Concrete Domains transition question” in the subject line.

Kind regards,
Andrew Atkinson | Release Manager