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LOINC (Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes) was developed to provide a definitive standard for identifying clinical information in electronic reports. The LOINC database provides a set of universal names and ID codes for identifying laboratory and clinical test results in the context of existing HL7, ASTM E1238, and CEN TC251 observation report messages. One of the main goals of LOINC is to facilitate the exchange and pooling of results for clinical care, outcomes management, and research. LOINC codes are intended to identify the test result or clinical observation. Other fields in the message can transmit the identity of the source laboratory and special details about the sample.
Regenstrief Institute: The goal of the LOINC groups project is to create a flexible, extensible, and computable mechanism for rolling up groups of LOINC codes for various purposes. Representative use cases include aggregating data for displaying on a flowsheet within an electronic health record (EHR) system, retrieving data for quality measure reporting, and processing data for research.
LOINC Groups are value sets of LOINC codes designed for specific purposes. We intend for the LG codes to serve as a coded value set identifier. (For more information, see https://www.hl7.org/fhir/valueset.html.) As, such they correspond to a particular "definition" of what should be included in the group. Following best practices, we intend to keep that logical definition stable in meaning over time. However, the members of the group may change as the underlying terminology (LOINC) evolves. For example, new concepts may be added that fulfill a group's definition and are thus included.
LOINC, which stands for Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes, was initiated in 1994 by Clem McDonald, then an investigator at Regenstrief Institute, a non-profit medical research organization associated with Indiana University. Indianapolis-based Regenstrief organized the LOINC Committee to develop a common terminology for laboratory and clinical observations because there was a growing trend to send clinical data electronically from laboratories and other data producers to hospitals, physician's offices, and payers who use the data for clinical care and management purposes.
At the time—and still today—most laboratories and clinical services use HL7 to send their results electronically from their reporting systems to their care systems. However, the tests in these messages are identified by means of their internal, idiosyncratic code values. As a result, receiving care system cannot fully "understand" and properly file the results they receive unless they either adopt the producer's test codes (which is impossible if they receive results from multiple sources), or invest in the work to map each result producer's code system to their internal code system.
