Hey all—after talking to Structured Docs this morning I wrote this Jira ticket about the RoleCode codeSystem (see below). Out of curiosity, has Clinical Genomics ever looked at this before? Since (AFAIK) one primary use case for this codeSystem is genetics and a lot of desire to make this value set more consistent is coming from there, Structured Docs was wondering whether anyone on CG might have more to say about this.

Thanks!

Description

The RoleCode code system seems fairly inconsistent about the way family relationship types interact with gender. For instance, we have separate codes for “brother”, “sister”, and “sibling” (as well as for “niece,” “nephew,” and “niece/nephew” with no implications about gender) but only codes for “aunt” and “uncle” (no gender-neutral “sibling of parent” concept), and for your parent’s sibling’s children, we only have the gender-neutral term “cousin” (presumably because English lacks distinct terms for “male cousin” and “female cousin”, although some languages capture that distinction!)

For genetics, for instance, there is a real desire for a gender-neutral “sibling of parent” term. Likewise, this codeSystem forms the basis of the Personal and Legal Relationship Role Type value set, so we may want to consider addressing this sometime around fixing that value set to better align with FHIR (per CDA-1768).

Matt Szczepankiewicz

Epic | Software Developer | Care Everywhere

�� +1 608-271-9000