Title: LOINC®: a universal catalogue of individual clinical observations and uniform representation of enumerated collections

Authors: Daniel J. Vreeman, Clement J. McDonald, Stanley M. Huff

Addresses: Indiana University School of Medicine, 410 W. 10th Street, Suite 2000, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA; and Regenstrief Institute, Inc, 410 W. 10th Street, Suite 2000, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA. ' Lister Hill National Centre for Biomedical Communications, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bldg. 38-A, Rm. 7N704, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA. ' University of Utah, 26 South 2000 East, Room 5775 HSEB, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA; and Intermountain Healthcare, 4646 W. Lake Park Blvd., Salt Lake City, UT 84120, USA

Abstract: In many areas of practice and research, clinical observations are recorded on data collection forms by asking and answering questions, yet without being represented in accepted terminology standards these results cannot be easily shared among clinical care and research systems. LOINC contains a well-developed model for representing variables, answer lists and the collections that contain them. We have successfully added many assessments and other collections of variables to LOINC in this model. By creating a uniform representation and distributing it worldwide at no cost, LOINC aims to lower the barriers to interoperability among systems and make this valuable data available across settings when and where it is needed.

Keywords: clinical observations; framework; health information technology; patient data; patient assessments; data sets; public health forms; clinical care; research systems; standards; terminology; healthcare technology; data collection forms; variables; answer lists; uniform representation; interoperability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJFIPM.2010.040211

International Journal of Functional Informatics and Personalised Medicine, 2010 Vol.3 No.4, pp.273 - 291

Published online: 21 May 2011 *

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