Grouper concepts may be used in providing augmentative terminology terms to local orders electronically, however these concepts should never, ever be sent as result codes in result messages.
Sections 7 and 12 of the LOINC Users’ Guide should be referenced for in-depth instructions on mapping local order panels to LOINC terms.
Rationale for creation
Approximately 2,500 concepts in a new Class named LABORDERS.ONTOLOGY were introduced in LOINC version 2.81. The rationale for creating the new concepts was twofold:
- People using the new LOINC Ontology (LOINC as a SNOMED CT Extension) have requested the creation of “organizing” or “grouper concepts” so that people browsing the Ontology are not presented with a flat list of roughly 35,000 concepts.
- There are many situations where result Lab LOINC codes are too specific for use in ordering. The SNOMED community and other international LOINC users have asked for codes that are at a more abstract granularity consistent with order codes typically found in laboratory order catalogues.
LABORDERS.ONTOLOGY captures both the idea of the concepts as organizers (ontology) and their use in orders. The detail page for the new class reads as follows:
This term is intended to collate similar measurements for the LOINC SNOMED CT collaboration in an ontological view. Additionally, it can be used to communicate a laboratory order, either alone or in combination with specimen or other information in the order. It may NOT be used to report back the measured patient value.
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