RSV Agent Requirements - Question for PHSC Community

Hi Cathy,
Thank you for your feedback. Indeed we often take for granted that the audience is aware of all acronyms and standards specific terms, which may not be the case, so the FSN refers to the SNOMED CT Fully Specified Name and the RFC refers to the Request for change.

During the coming year, we will develop awareness, education and training material on adoption, implementation and maintenance of SNOMED CT. That will be an opportunity to learn more on how this reference terminology works and how to benefit from it, when the terminology model is understood,

If in the meantime, you want to learn more about it, or have other questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Infoway helpdesk. We will be happy to provide you with information you need.

Hi Linda, thanks for your reply, but it still is a bit murky. I don't know what you mean by RFCs and FSNs.

Even though I have 35 years of experience mostly dealing with vaccines, imm records & clinical software across 8 prov/territories, think of me as a new vendor trying to understand the Can Vaccine Catalogue, and eventually the Nat Vaccine Catalogue, to see how (and if) we can use it to design electronic health/medical record systems (EHR, EMR) for immunizers - especially to allow for seamless electronic submission to provincial repositories and downloading from repositories. I don't know these new (or newer) acronyms.

If the desired goal is to have people use the CVC & NVC, it must be understandable and usable for systems, with the least cost of adoption as possible. Or at least be understandable enough to create mapping processes to match data standards, fields, & messaging processes.

I suppose we will have to map orthopneumovirus in the background coding to display Respiratory Syncytial Virus to the system users, much as we would have to translate paracetamol to acetaminophen if we are completely following European terminology.

Just to let you know that any terminology use like this (unnecessarily difficult to understand, & requiring translation) requires extra coding and development resources, which drives up the cost of any system product, and make adoption of these standards into existing software much more expensive (or will just be ignored). This is a barrier to using the CVC & NVC by vendors, and therefore a cost issue for immunizers to purchase & use systems.

Thank you Jo-Anne for the explanation. Also, for explaining what the acronym EDQM means and the reference link. Perhaps if it stated "... and suspension containing adjuvant.." , it would be clearer. It just looked like a repeated phrase typo.

Hi, I can confirm that the two vaccines have different presentations and the wording for each presentation has been chosen to comply with the EDQM standard terms for units of presentation. In the RFCs for each vaccine concept the comments also justify and confirm the choice of wording for the FSNs.
I hope this helps.

Hi Cathy and Taylor,

This isn't a typo. The difference is that Arexvy is supplied as a powder for suspension plus a suspension (containing the adjuvant) to reconstitute the powder. On the other hand, Abrysvo is a powder for suspension but is reconstituted with sterile water. The terminology is from the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM) standard terms published by the Council of Europe (standardterms.edqm.eu).

Hope that helps.

Thank you Cathy! I copied this directly from the RFC: informs.infoway-inforoute.ca/browse/SCT-20152

I have added a comment to the RFC to confirm if there is a typo.