Introduction

The current health information technology environment is quickly altering worldwide. There is growing evidence that adoption of health information technology will ensure the use best practice and develop the quality of health care in a cost-efficient manner. Applying health standardized terminologies is a fundamental component of health IT adoption. These codes and terminologies facilitate clear communication a well as the aggregation and collection of medical information across setting. So Terminologies are essential to communicate and document patient care data in alignment with the care process. One of the important multidisciplinary terminologies is Logical Observation Identifies Names and Codes (LOINC).

Overview of the  (LOINC)

Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC) terminology is available to public, nonprofit database that gives a group of codes and names determining clinical test and laboratory results which can be used in transmitted in electronic messages or databases. Primary evolved in 1994, it was generated and is upheld by the Regenstrief Institute, a united state nonprofit medical research institutes. The reasoning for the evolving of LOINC was to generate global codes and names for measurements used in a laboratory setting. The aim of the LOINC committee was to create codes that can be globally used by all health system and can as a therefore easily participate in clinical and laboratory information exchange (LOINC, 2016).

How (LOINC) Work 

Each LOINC measurement, observation, or test is generated using the following six axes:

1-      Component: what is evaluated and measured (for instance, hemoglobin, and glucose).

2-      Kind of property: characteristics of the component that is measured (such as, length, mass, volume, concentration).

3-      Timing of the measurement.

4-      System: the type of system or specimen ( such as, urine, blood).

5-      Scale: the measurement scale ( for instance, nominal, ordinal, qualitative, and quantitative)

6-      The method used to make the observation (optional).

Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC) and Nursing  

On 18, 2002 December, the American Nurses Association (ANA) Committee for Nursing Practice Information Infrastructure recognized the (LOINC) as the 13 terminologies for use by nursing. LOINC contains different of names and codes of relevance to nursing assessments. Including codes related to vital sign, clinical assessment scales, intake and output, obstetric measurements, research instruments, and evaluation from standardized nursing terminologies. Moreover, LOINC assessment codes can assist the retrieval of related assessment data for connection with nursing diagnoses and nursing intervention to detect the effectiveness of a specific intervention. Such as, in the instance of pain, LOINC codes are for features of pain assessment (duration, severity, and quality) that are essential in detecting the efficiency of particular pain intervention (Matney, Bakken, & Huff, 2003). 

Why LOINC Important to Nursing

Recently, according to LOINC.Org states that there is a new standardized data set of more than one hundred measurable terms and coded that allows health care systems to compare accurately and assess the efficiency of their nursing care, staffing, and facilities, shit-by shift, and unit by- unit. For instance, any two hospitals can compare the staffing complement with the occurrence of catheter-associated urinary tract infections. They use the variety of EHRs, scheduling, and human resource systems. On the other hand, those systems contain the universal LOINC codes standard for reporting the following for their staff; staff turnover, staff mix, education, years of experience, and certifications. Because they apply the same codes and standard, they are now able to compare outcomes and care.

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