A Limited, Patch Release
Like 65° F weather in February across central Indiana, it's a bit unusual for us to publish an interim release. We aren't planning to make a habit of it (though we will enjoy the warmer temps while they last), but we noticed some important issues in the December 2.58 release that needed to be corrected.
As a result, we strongly recommend that all LOINC users update their systems to the current version 2.59.
Here are the details of what was updated in this release.
A few key content updates
NO new terms
LOINC version 2.59 does not contain any new LOINC terms since the December 2.58 release. The updates we made in this release were to other content as detailed below.
Key updates to existing terms
- We populated the EXTERNAL_COPYRIGHT_NOTICE field (and updated the CHANGE_REASON_PUBLIC field) in the main LOINC table for 390 NIH Toolbox-related terms.
- We fixed truncated text in the Description and CopyrightNotice fields on the ANSWERS tab of the LOINC panels and forms file.
- We fixed the links between 359 LOINC terms and their Parts in the LOINC document ontology file. Out of the 359 corrections, 358 were for LOINC terms with values for both Subject Matter Domain and Role, and one correction was for a term with multiple Settings.
Notes about the LOINC Change File and LOINC Change Report for this release
Because there were no changes to the main parts of a LOINC name for any term from version 2.58 to version 2.59, the LOINC Change Report we are publishing with this release shows changes from version 2.56 (June 2016) to 2.59 (February 2017). If you would like to see the rows that had other attributes edited in 2.59 (as described above), you can use the table in the Change File (Microsoft Access file) and filter by Version Last Changed = 2.59.
RELMA version 6.18
Minor changes to RELMA
RELMA version 6.18 was released in conjunction with LOINC version 2.59 to correct the content issues noted above. Besides the LOINC content updates, the only changes made to the RELMA program were to update the copyright year (welcome to 2017!) and some minor edits to the RELMA Users' Manual.
LOINC License
Minuscule changes to the LOINC License
There were no substantive changes to the LOINC License in this release. But, we did update the copyright year and fix some section numbering inconsistencies that crept in across the various formats in which the License is distributed. Curses on those auto-numbering gremlins!
Sorry for the trouble, but still...
Happy LOINCing in 2017!