LOINC® from Regenstrief Institute hosted more than 900 registrants representing 61 countries during the biannual stakeholder meeting on March 28, 2024. The meeting, held via a virtual webinar, had attendees gather to learn about recent accomplishments and work in progress by the Regenstrief Health Data Standards (HDS) team.
During the webinar, the topics presented and discussed were a review of LOINC release 2.77, an update on the HDS strategic plan and a briefing on work across committees and the community. Presenters at the meeting also addressed questions submitted by attendees in advance, and live questions from the audience.
LOINC, short for Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes, is a global standard for health terminology. Created and maintained at Regenstrief, LOINC enables the identification, exchange and collection of data across health systems and is used around the world.
The HDS team provided attendees with progress updates for Regenstrief’s response to United States Core Data for Interoperability v5, the new collaboration with the Gravity Project to develop social determinants of health assessments and the effort between Regenstrief and SNOMED International resulting in the LOINC Ontology: A LOINC and SNOMED CT Interoperability Solution. Attendees had an opportunity to interact directly with the HDS team, ask questions and gain deeper insights into the nuances of the LOINC release 2.77.
LOINC release 2.77 includes more than 800 new concepts and edits to more than 1,500 concepts. Work captured in this release includes concepts to support molecular genetic and drug and toxicology testing, ultrasound echocardiogram ejection fraction measurements, and new patient survey assessments.
LOINC is a code system available to users at no cost. Its long-term funding is supported by U.S. federal agencies and other organizations. Regenstrief HDS releases updates to LOINC twice per year, in February and August. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and further emphasized the value of this standard and its impact on data interoperability.
The webinar is available online here: https://loinc.org/webinar/.
About LOINC® from Regenstrief Institute
LOINC® was created in 1994 at Regenstrief Institute to facilitate interoperability in healthcare and is administered by Regenstrief Institute Health Data Standards. 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 102,000 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. LOINC, short for Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes, is a global standard for health terminology. Created and maintained at Regenstrief, LOINC enables the identification, exchange and collection of data across health systems and is used around the world.
