ValueSets
Building a Strong Foundation for Health Data with ValueSets
A ValueSet in healthcare informatics, particularly in standards like FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), refers to a uniquely identifiable set of valid concept representations. This means it is a collection of codes or terms from one or more code systems, which can be used to specify the allowable values for an element in a healthcare resource. Each concept in the ValueSet can be tested to determine whether or not it is a member of the set.
What is the Canadian Standards Release Centre’s role
The Canadian Standards Release Centre (CSRC) maintains ValueSets in partnership with Provincial, Territorial, and Federal e-Health agencies from across Canada working towards the successful implementation of National digital health solutions. These ValueSets are hosted on the Terminology server for jurisdictions and organizations to utilize. Further information related to ValueSet releases, can be found in the “Learn more” section about ValueSets below.
ValueSets vs Subsets
The term “Subset” is used to identify a set where all elements are also contained in another set. In other words, if you have a set A, a subset B consists only of elements that also belong to A. These subsets include constrained lists of allowable values or terminology from the source code systems (i.e. SNOMED CT Canadian Edition, pCLOCD, UCUM, SCP or HL7).
The terms “ValueSet” and “Subset” are used interchangeably. ValueSets are now hosted on the FHIR Terminology Server.
Specific to SNOMED CT (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms), a reference set (or refset) is a standardized format used to maintain and distribute a curated list of references to SNOMED CT components.
