Representatives from reference labs, healthcare providers, government agencies, insurance companies, software and device manufacturers and researchers from 20 countries mapped test codes, explored innovation through artificial intelligence and discussed digital health and interoperability during the LOINC® conference in Washington, D.C.
The three-day annual event featured numerous health data standards experts from around the globe presenting information across three points of emphasis: implementation and policy, innovation and mapping.
Featured presenters were:
- Jesse Ehrenfeld, M.D., MPH, the immediate past president of the American Medical Association.
- Bobby Jefferson, the vice president and global head of diversity, equity, engagement and inclusion at Development Alternatives, Inc.
- Ronald Wyatt, M.D., the founder and chief executive officer of Achieving Health Equity, LLC.
LOINC Award for Distinguished Contributions
John Snyder, a health program specialist at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), received the annual LOINC Award for Distinguished Contributions. Snyder, an exceptionally committed contributor to LOINC, serves on the LOINC lab committee and the Document Ontology committee. He contributes significantly to the LIVD and LIDR initiatives.
Stan Huff Education Award
This is awarded to a student(s) studying health informatics or a related field. The 2024 Stan Huff Education awardees were:
- Aušrinė Zeleckytė, a student at Vilnius University in Lithuania and an employee at the Lithuanian Medical Library, National Center for Medical Nomenclatures and Classifiers.
- Muhammad Abid Mirza, a graduate student at the University of Maryland.
Additional presenters were:
- Craig Brater, M.D., chair of the Regenstrief Institute Board of Directors and president of the Regenstrief Foundation.
- Stan Huff, M.D., a globally renowned healthcare data interoperability expert.
- U.S. Federal Partners (Panel Presentation)
- Keith Campbell, program director, U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Systemic Harmonization and Interoperability Enhancement for Laboratory Data (SHIELD) program.
- Raja Cholan, M.S., chief of health data standards, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (NIH).
- Matthew Rahn, director of standards division, assistant secretary for Technology Policy/Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.
- Jim Jirjis, M.D., MBA, division director of data policy and standards, Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Jenna Norton, PhD, MPH, program manager, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), NIH.
- Digital Health and Interoperability: A Global Tour (Panel Presentation)
- Saurav Bhattarai, team lead, openIMIS, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
- Ticia Gerber, global director for partnerships and policy, Health Level Seven International®.
- Matthew Hein, Office of Health and Information Technology (OHIT).
- Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran, M.S., MBA, Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN).
About LOINC®
LOINC® was created in 1994 at Regenstrief Institute to facilitate interoperability in healthcare. There was a growing trend to send clinical data electronically between healthcare entities, a practice that has now become ubiquitous. Today, it contains more than 104,000 concepts for everything from an albumin level to a zygomatic arch X-ray report. For each concept, LOINC contains many other rich details, such as synonyms, units of measure, and carefully crafted descriptions.
