RELMA 4.3, released:  February 26, 2010

LOINC and RELMA User's Guides: February 2010

New Features

New LOINC Content

LOINC version 2.30 contains 57,693 terms, an increase of 210 since the December 2009 version. Approximately 89 terms have been edited.  A total of 26 terms have been deprecated.

This release includes further enhancements to newborn screening terms, updates to the OASIS-C and MDSv3 patient assessment instrument content, and refinement of common laboratory panels made in collaboration with the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) and in support of HITSP C80.

New RELMA Features

1. Modified the layout of the LOINC detail reports to improve the look and feel.  We also adjusted the sections that are displayed on the simple and comprehensive versions of the display.
2. Re-enabled the "propose a LOINC" feature when the program is run via our Citrix internet server.
3. Corrected a bug that was causing issues with dates for certain international users.
4. If you specify units without any keywords or other restrictions, RELMA will now search for LOINCs with units and properties compatible with the units you specify - for example, searching on "g/dL" will yield LOINCs with units and properties of "g/dL", "MCnc", "ng/dL", etc. but would not yield LOINCs with units and properties of "g", "SCnc", "%", etc.
5. "Custom Display" now saves the selected sections when RELMA exits,so you will see the same selected sections the next time RELMA starts.
6. The "Custom Display" selection screen now has a "Reset to Defaults"button that returns the form to a default set of selected sections.
7. When displaying the details for a panel, the same details are shown for both the root LOINC and its children (except for "Core Parts", which are displayed only for the root LOINC unless you are using the Custom Display).
8. If a LOINC is part of the "Common tests 99.+ %tile", then that LOINC's percentage of use is shown on all of the search results screens.
9. Multi-axial search results views can now be configured through the"Configure Grid" action.
10. The OID and code system (if they exist) for answer lists are now displayed.

*** IMPORTANT INSTALLATION NOTE ***

Newer versions of Microsoft Windows have tightened down the security settings of the operating system. This has required us to move the RELMA data files out of the Windows "Program Files" directory. By default the program will now install the RELMA.MDB and LMOF3.MDB databases in a \RELMA sub-directory of the users local directory. The default path looks something like: C:\Users\<intended user>\Documents\RELMA.This choice can have unintended consequences if the person installing the program is logged in as a different user than the person who will be using the program.A typical example of this behavior is a situation where an IT support person logs into a machine as an administrator to install the program for a local user. In this case, the /RELMA data file directory will be created under the administrator accounts local directory. When this happens, the intended user will not be able to see the data files when the program starts and RELMA will report an error.In this situation, the installer must copy the /RELMA directory to the appropriate local user directory or some other directory to which the user has access and ensure that they have read and write privileges to the directory. It is very important that prior to moving any files,that you make a backup copy of the LMOF3.MDB database. If the target user already has a LMOF3.MDB data file, it should NOT be replaced by the empty file created during the upgrade. If this happens, the users prior work will be lost.When the user runs the program for the first time, they be prompted for the location of the two database files. If this happens, just browse to the /RELMA directory and select the appropriate file. We are still evaluating our choice of target directory and may changes the location again in future release.