This Editorial Guide is used for Education Purposes Only. It is used in the Authoring Courses and Certifications. It is based on the January 2026 Editorial Guide.
272394005 | Technique (qualifier value) |
A technique (also called method) is a particular way of performing an activity or task.
While a technique describes how a specific observation is performed, it should generally not include specific details about what is being observed, i.e., it should not include a component, specimen type, body site, etc.
Information about what is being observed would be included in a separate attribute of the Observable entity model. Observable Entity Defining Attributes provides more details about modeling of observables using various attributes.
This Editorial Guide is used for Education Purposes Only. It is used in the Authoring Courses and Certifications. It is based on the January 2026 Editorial Guide.
The 258681007 | International System of Units unit of mass (qualifier value) | hierarchy contains concepts representing metric units of mass.
Concepts representing Unit of Mass
FSN
X metric unit of mass
This Editorial Guide is used for Education Purposes Only. It is used in the Authoring Courses and Certifications. It is based on the January 2026 Editorial Guide.
Qualifier values include a wide range of concepts that provide attribute values used in the definitions of other concepts. These values can also be used in expressions to refine the meaning of a concept, or in the appropriate fields of a health record to add additional information.
Action, Numbers, Clinical specialty, Context values, Mode of transmission, Type of diagnosis, Scale type, Sport, Technique, Time frame, World languages
There are also many Qualifier value subtypes relating to the pharmaceutical realm: Additional dosage instructions, Basic dose form, Route of administration value, etc.
The 362981000 | Qualifier value (qualifier value) | hierarchy contains concepts used as the target value of an attribute in a defining relationship.
For example,
18639004 | Left kidney structure (body structure) | has a Laterality (attribute) of Left (qualifier value)
The use of qualifiers varies greatly according to the domain to which they are applied. Thus, guidance in their use is often found within the guidance of the respective domain. So for the above example, information regarding the laterality/left attribute-value pair, see found within the Body structure domain. The range of values for a particular attribute is provided in the specific concept model of the domain. For further information on the range of values for a specific domain, see the different content types and rules in the MRCM maintenance tool at .
This Editorial Guide is used for Education Purposes Only. It is used in the Authoring Courses and Certifications. It is based on the January 2026 Editorial Guide.
The 282115005 | International System of Units-derived unit of volume (qualifier value) | hierarchy contains concepts representing metric units of volume.
Concepts representing Derived Unit of Volume
PT
X metric unit of mass abbreviated without the expanded form
This is an exception to the SNOMED CT standard of requiring abbreviations to be accompanied by the expanded term or phrase.
SYN
X metric unit of mass
Changes cannot be made to the Qualifier Value hierarchy without permission from the Chief Terminologist
FSN
X metric unit of volume (qualifier value)
For example,
258771000 |Deciliter (qualifier value) |
258773002 |Milliliter (qualifier value) |
258770004 |Liter (qualifier value) |
PT
X metric unit of volume abbreviated without the expanded form
This is an exception to the SNOMED CT standard of requiring abbreviations to be accompanied by the expanded term or phrase.
For example,
dL
mL
L
SYN
X metric unit of volume
For example,
deciliter
milliliter
liter
This Editorial Guide is used for Education Purposes Only. It is used in the Authoring Courses and Certifications. It is based on the January 2026 Editorial Guide.
The 726711005 | Disposition (disposition) | hierarchy is required to support the remodeling of the 105590001 | Substance (substance) | hierarchy. These concepts are used as the attribute values for the 726542003 | Has disposition (attribute) |. The (disposition) semantic tag is used to differentiate concepts in this hierarchy from similar concepts in other hierarchies.
Concepts representing Disposition
FSN
X (disposition)
For example,
Coagulation factor inhibitor (disposition)
Acute phase reactant (disposition)
PT
X
For example,
Coagulation factor inhibitor
Acute phase reactant
HIV fusion inhibitor
Modeling
Techniques, as qualifier values, should include the word technique in their FSNs.
For example,
702658000 | Microbial culture technique (qualifier value) |