VocApp-Proposal/CreateBody

Adding Vocabulary Revisions to Proposal

Once the meta data for a proposal has been defined, and the file has been created, it is possible to add as many vocabulary revisions as one wishes to the file. These are added by selecting one of the nodes displayed in the application, right-clicking on the node to get a revision menu and selecting the desired revision.

Prerequisites for this step:

1. The vocabulary data must have been loaded from the data base.
2. A valid proposal file must have been created and activated.

For this reason, the documentation of the revisions is divided into the kinds of nodes that can be selected in the application. The details are covered in sections of the document devoted to each group of revisions. The revision groupings and hyper links to the sections follow.

Value Set Revisions are:

Those revisions that are applied to a node selected from the Value Set Navigator tree in the application.

For the most part these revisions affect the Value Sets in HL7 vocabulary, their contents (including Coded Concepts from Code Systems, and their binding to Concept Domains. This is the only complete set of revisions as of 08:41, 10 October 2007 (CDT)

Concept Domain Revisions are:

Those revisions that are applied to a node selected from the Concept Domain Tree in the application.

For the most part these revisions affect the definition and hierarchical relationships between Concept Domains. There are no revisions of this type as of 08:41, 10 October 2007 (CDT), although several of the Value Set Revisions effect revisions to the Concept Domains.

Code System Revisions are:

Those revisions that are applied to a node selected from the Code System Table in the application.

For the most part these revisions affect the creation and definition of new Code Systems, the addition of Coded Concepts, and the definition of hierarchical relationships between the Coded Concepts. There are no revisions of this type as of 08:41, 10 October 2007 (CDT), although several of the Value Set Revisions effect revisions to the Coded Concepts within previously defined Code Systems.

Revision Interdependencies

TRUTH: it is extremely rare that a simple desired revision affects only one of the three categories, and it is extremely common that most useful revisions involve more than one of them.

Consider the following simple example. Assume we expanded the tutorial example. Suppose we want to add a specializable value set with head code of ANT, print name ant eater and named ActClassAnteater, and under that we wanted to add aardvark (AAR) as a specialization. Finally, we also want to have ActClassAnteater be a binding for a concept domain named ActClassBeastsThatEatAnts under the domain ActClass. Note that this might normally be presented by a committee as a "Value Set change".

This example is fairly easy to do with the application, but when we look at the resulting change request proposal in XML (at right), it is hardly "just a value set revision". The XML has been highlighted in three colors -- green for code system revisions, violet for domain revisions and yellow for value set revisions. Note that the value set revisions are much less than half the total. The sequencing of the changes is automatically managed by the application. In the example at right, I started with a "Create value Set" operation and worked through the forms. The application took care of sequencing the operations as shown. Nevertheless, it to understand the fairly simple rules that apply. These are summarized below. Vocabulary Revision Dependencies Domain Revisions Domain revisions are not dependent on any other revision, but the revision that adds a domain must occur before a value set can be bound to it, as this binding is considered value set revision. Code System Revisions Code System revisions are not dependent upon other any other revisions, but usually any codes to be added to a value set must have been defined before the value set revision commences (as above).

Change request XML for a value set change color-coded to show three classes of changes.

Value Set Revisions Because value sets are defined from the codes in one or more code systems, Value Set revisions are always dependent on the prior establishment of the code system elements (codes) that are in the value set.