Veterans Affairs Connecticut Healthcare, West Haven, CT, USA.
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2018 Feb 1;25(2):192-196. doi: 10.1093/jamia/ocx056.
Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC) is the most widely used controlled vocabulary to identify laboratory tests. A given laboratory test can often be reported in more than 1 unit of measure (eg, grams or moles), and LOINC defines unique codes for each unit. Consequently, an identical laboratory test performed by 2 different clinical laboratories may have different LOINC codes. The absence of unit conversions between compatible LOINC codes impedes data aggregation and analysis of laboratory results. To develop such conversions, a computational process was developed to review the LOINC standard for potential conversions, and multiple expert reviewers oversaw and finalized the conversion list. In all, 285 bidirectional conversions were identified, including conversions for routine clinical tests such as sodium, magnesium, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Unit conversions were applied to the aggregation of laboratory test results to demonstrate their usefulness. Diverse informatics projects may benefit from the ability to interconvert compatible results.
逻辑观察标识符名称和代码 (LOINC) 是用于识别实验室检测的最广泛使用的受控词汇。给定的实验室检测通常可以用多个度量单位 (如克或摩尔) 报告，而 LOINC 为每个单位定义了唯一的代码。因此，由 2 个不同临床实验室执行的相同实验室检测可能具有不同的 LOINC 代码。缺乏兼容 LOINC 代码之间的单位转换会阻碍实验室结果的数据聚合和分析。为了开发这种转换，开发了一种计算过程来审查 LOINC 标准以确定潜在的转换，并且有多名专家审核员监督和最终确定了转换列表。总共确定了 285 个双向转换，包括钠、镁和人类免疫缺陷病毒 (HIV) 等常规临床检测的转换。已将单位转换应用于实验室检测结果的聚合，以证明其有用性。不同的信息学项目可能受益于能够相互转换兼容结果的能力。
