LOINC

LOINC (logical observation identifiers names and codes). LOINC provides codes for the observation names (eg eye color), not the observation finding (eg blue eyes). LOINC provides codes for questions and where needed, other vocabularies provide codes for the answers.

LOINC is a community-built universal code system that facilitates the exchange, pooling, and processing of laboratory and other clinical observations. It is a controlled terminology that contains unique identifiers and “fully specified” names built using a formal structure, which distinguishes among tests and observations that are clinically different.

Researchers at the Regenstrief Institute set up the LOINC Committee and devel- opment of the database in 1994. Since then, the Regenstrief Institute and the LOINC Committee have published more than 50 versions of the standard that now contains around 80,000 terms (2016). Regenstrief Institute serves as the overall steward for the LOINC development effort, and works together with the LOINC Committee to define the overall naming conventions and policies for the development process. The Regenstrief Institute and the LOINC Committee have intentionally shaped LOINC development to be empirical, nimble, and open.

LOINC has been widely adopted. Today, there are more than 40,000 users from 170 countries. LOINC terms are available in 21 languages and dialects. LOINC has been adopted in both the public and private sector by government agencies, labora- tories, care delivery organizations, health information exchange efforts, healthcare payers, research organizations, and within many exchange standards.

LOINC creates codes and a formal name for each concept that corresponds to a single kind of observation measurement or test result. The formal LOINC name is fully specified in the sense that it contains the features necessary to disambiguate among similar clinically distinct observations. The fully specified name is con- structed using a six-part semantic model to produce a pre-coordinated expression. This does not capture all possible information about the procedure or result – just enough to unambiguously identify it.