2024-10-30 - Laboratory Terminology Standards WG Meeting

Consider the starting point to look at attributes in lab reporting terminology

• Start looking at the quantitative reporting pattern that covers a lot of content in overlapping blood science e.g. chemical pathology, immunology, haematology, serology
• Basic building blocks are PROPERTY of SUBSTANCE/ENTITY in SPECIMEN by TECHNIQUE

1. Requirement for inheres_in:

• LOINC view is lab perspective so using direct_site and nothing is added to the logic by including inheres_in for blood science codes. The specimen SNOMED CT code models the substance so can be inferred if needed. The information is sufficient for the clinical side to know the specimen
• NPU view is the clinical perspective and so they require the inheres_in and will not need direct_site for machine-readable definition
• Tech preview expression set models both inheres_in and direct_site
• UK extn models both inheres_in and direct_site

2. Time_aspect

• LOINC Ontology terminologists explained the inclusion of  'time_aspect - > single point in time' in the logical definition and 'at single point in time' for every reporting SNOMED CT concept version of a LOINC code that is otherwise a specified time point e.g. 24 hr Urine test
• If time_aspect is added only by exception for specific time points, as the UK has done, then the classification results are not representative of comparative lab test results - they need to classify as siblings. An unmodelled 'single point in time' test must not subsume a '24 hour urine test' as they are not the same in practice to be counted and compared as subtypes

• UK need to consider whether inheres_in is superfluous and align with international terminology
• UK need to inform lab network that the subsumption relationships created by unmodelled 'single point in time' concepts are not representative and ensure they agree to align to the international design and model all concepts