Concept Domain Naming Conventions

Overview

In order to provide consistency in how models and concept domains are interpreted, a set of naming conventions pertaining to concept domains have been developed. This will help vocabulary users in identifying existing concept domains that may meet their requirements, as well as provide a consistency for developing and reviewing vocabulary updates.

Naming Conventions

Root concept domains are assigned to a specific RIM class attribute or HL7 Abstract Datatype property. The naming standard for all Root concept domains is as follows:

• [RIM Class Name] + [attribute name] or

• [Abstract Datatype Name] + [property name]

For all concept domains that specialize a root concept domain, their names shall begin with a print name qualifier followed by the root concept domain name.

Note: Where the attribute name or property name is Code, it will be changed to Type. This is necessary to avoid confusion as concept domains are essentially categorizations, and do not in and of themselves contain codes of any type.

Example - RIM Class

Where RIM Class Name = Act and attribute name = Mood, the concept domain is ActMood

Example - Domains That Specialize a Root Concept Domain

Where the concept domain is ActMood, and the specialized print name qualifier is Proposal the specialized concept domain is ProposalActMood

Backwards Compatibility

At this time there will be no effort to modify existing concept domains to adhere to the naming conventions specified here. While changing the name of a domain is easy, any modification of an existing domain name will necessitate an update to all models making use of that domain. For the time being, this effort is considered unreasonable and focus will be directed at ensuring new domains are named in accordance with the recommended naming conventions.

Value Sets

NOTE: Value Set naming are document elsewhere.