Updates for Informatics & Nursing


	Updates for Informatics & Nursing

Updates for Informatics and Nursing

Last Updated: September 11, 2003

ANA recognizes another standardized terminology.

(From Chapter 13 - Nursing Classification Systems)

There are now 13 ANA recognized languages. On December 18, 2002, the ANA Committee for Nursing Practice Information Infrastructure recognized the Logical Observation Indentifiers Names & Codes (LOINC). This terminology was originally created to define univesral names and codes for laboratory findings. It has since grown to provide vocabularies for clinical documentation. It supports nursing practice with LOINC names for nursing assessement measurements and standardized nursing outcome measures. These codes are intended for documenting clinical observations.

In order to maintain a standard terminology, LOINC Codes are freely available, but must be used as is. The LOINC names can be matched to a local vocabulary permitting familiar names to still be used, but translated to LOINC codes for communcation with other entities. Each LOINC code has six parts as seen in Table 1

Fields	Description	Example
Component Measured	What is being analyzed	Body Temperature
Property Measured	What is being measured	Temperature
Timing	Length of time sample was measured, eg. single measurement, or 24 hour	Patient
Type of sample	System or body part of fluid about which the measurement was made.	Mouth
Type of scale	How measured, ranked (ordinal) or definitive numbers (quantitative), nominal or text	Quantitative
Method used	Procedure used to make the measurement (only used when distinction is necessary)

Table 1: Components of a LOINC Record

Information about the other ANA recognized standardized terminologies is in Chapter 13 of the text.

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