Although the main focus of the renewed collaboration agreement is the release of the LOINC Ontology, it also continues the work initiated in 2022, including the adoption of working practices that facilitate the use and interoperability of the terminology standards both organizations produce. It will also focus on ensuring that stakeholders/users globally have clear direction on the use of the standards, whether together or individually, and that an effective interoperability solution is available to users when both standards are implemented in the same system.
The upcoming release is the result of the renewed collaboration between the two organizations that began in 2022 and continued in 2023 with the technical preview of the ontology, building on the relationship formed more than a decade ago.
The ontology, colloquially referred to as the LOINC Extension, is slated for release at the end of March 2025 and will initially cover quantitative laboratory tests. After the initial production release, Regenstrief plans to issue the release twice a year (March and September) following the twice annual LOINC release. To keep up to date on important project news including informational release webinars, subscribe to receive updates.
The March 2025 release will include more than 35,000 concepts, including quantitative lab tests and the top 200 most used lab tests ordered. Domains of information (lab, clinical, documents, radiology, survey instruments) will be added incrementally. We will link existing SNOMED CT concepts to existing LOINC content where applicable and new LOINC codes will be created as needed. LOINC Parts will be mapped to SNOMED concepts, and new SNOMED CT concepts will be created as needed.
Read the news release here
You can also attend a free webinar on the extension hosted by Regenstrief on Tuesday, March 25, from 09:30-11:00 EDT / 13:30-15:00 UTC
