We are excited to announce LOINC® Version 2.82, which delivers new and revised content updates and technical enhancements, reflecting continued collaboration with the global health and standards community and ongoing stewardship to advance global interoperability, enhance data exchange, support patient-centered care, strengthen public health and research capabilities, and enable a broad range of clinical and secondary use cases.
What’s included in this release
The sections below describe updates to LOINC content across the Laboratory, Clinical, Document, and Survey domains, including advancements in the LOINC Ontology and ongoing alignment with federal and international partners such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). These updates support harmonized data collection, improved semantic consistency, and more interoperable use of health data across care settings. The release also includes a summary of technical updates that enhance platform functionality, tooling, and overall usability for the LOINC community.
LOINC Ontology updates
Our collaboration with SNOMED International on the LOINC Ontology continues. Some updates for this release include:
- Representation of coagulation tests, including clotting times, platelet aggregation, clotting factor assays, and clotting factor activities. The main change for these items was moving method/technique information about coagulation induction, additives, dilutions, etc. from the COMPONENT field to the METHOD field.
- Revision of the representation of antibiotic susceptibility tests that had a specified concentration for testing. We moved the concentration of the antibiotic used in the test to be information in the METHOD field. For example, “Amikacin 12.0 ug/mL Susc Pt Isolate OrdQn Method for Slow-growing mycobacteria” was revised to say “Amikacin Susc Pt Isolate OrdQn Method for Slow-growing mycobacteria.antibiotic concentration at 12.0 ug/mL”.
- Identification of duplicate concepts based on unrecognized synonymy and clarification or deprecation of a few concepts that were ambiguous.
Updates supporting the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) post acute care (PAC) assessment program
These updates include ongoing standardization and maintenance activities to support consistent data collection across post-acute care (PAC) settings, including Long-Term Care Hospitals, Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities, Skilled Nursing Facilities, and Home Health Agencies. These efforts are designed to improve alignment and comparability across assessments, reduce variation, and support more interoperable use of PAC data.
As part of this CMS standardization maintenance initiative, updates were made to all Sections A through Z across the following assessment instruments to promote harmonization and consistency:
- Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility–Patient Assessment Instrument (IRF-PAI) v4.2
- Long-Term Care Hospital (LTCH) Continuity Assessment Record and Evaluation (CARE) Data Set (LCDS) v5.1
- Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS) E2
- Minimum Data Set (MDS) v1.20.1
- Hospice Outcomes and Patient Evaluation (HOPE) v1.01
- Functional assessment standardized items (FASI) v1.2
Laboratory
The Laboratory domain was expanded with new and enhanced content across molecular pathology, microbiology, allergy testing, toxicology, and clinical laboratory panels, supporting a broad range of diagnostic and public health use cases.
Key additions include:
- Molecular pathology and microbial genetic testing concepts for bacterial and viral DNA and RNA
- Environmental, food, and animal allergy testing concepts
- Toxicology content, including human papillomavirus (HPV)-related testing and confirmatory assays
New laboratory panels support clinical and diagnostic workflows, including:
- Multigene mRNA expression panels assessing bacterial, viral, and inflammatory activity in blood
- Panels for sexually transmitted and bloodborne infections using serum-based immunoassays
- Combined Treponema pallidum antibody and Rubella virus IgG panels
- Human papillomavirus type 16 testing using plasma cell-free DNA
Additional domain-specific enhancements include:
- Pathology panels supporting immunostain-based detection of melanoma-associated antigens
- Hematology panels for detecting gene fusions associated with hematologic malignancies
- Support for hospital laboratory catalogs through expanded coverage of bacterial respiratory disease panels, hormone-related testing, and drug and toxicology assays
Clinical
The Clinical domain introduces new and updated content to strengthen support for clinical assessment, diagnostic imaging, procedures, and health related social needs, enabling more comprehensive and interoperable representation of patient care across settings.
Key additions include:
- Visual field measurement concepts using static automated perimetry to support the clinical management of glaucoma and neuro-ophthalmologic conditions
- Additional concepts for gastrointestinal endoscopic procedures reflecting evolving clinical practice
- New radiology concepts, including expanded method representation to improve specificity and clarity
- Concepts addressing access to hygiene, economic characteristics, and household income to support social determinants of health related social needs data capture
- Clinical risk concepts related to alcohol use and smoking status to support prevention, screening, and risk stratification
Documents and Surveys
The Document and Survey domains add new content that strengthens clinical documentation, patient-reported data capture, and standardized assessment across preventive care, neurology, mental health, referrals, and social and clinical factors that influence health outcomes.
Document content advances support for clinical documentation and care coordination in preventive medicine, neurology, mental health, and referral workflows.
Survey content was expanded with support from the Regenstrief Foundation and in collaboration with the HL7 Gravity Project, advancing standardized assessments addressing social needs, lived experiences, behavioral risk factors, and other contextual factors beyond the assessment of social determinants of health.
Additional surveys support clinical assessment in neurology, general medicine, and mental health, including:
- DePaul Symptom Questionnaire – Post-Exertional Malaise (DSQ-PEM), a validated instrument for assessing the frequency and severity of symptoms associated with post-exertional malaise
- Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS), a questionnaire used to assess the intensity of common symptoms experienced by patients with serious illness, including cancer
Ongoing internal maintenance across document and survey content helps ensure LOINC remains aligned with evolving clinical practice, public health priorities, and stakeholder needs.
Technical Enhancements
In addition to normal software development and maintenance work, our engineers have made the following enhancements to better serve the LOINC community.
- LOINC Translator Portal – The pilot of a new web interface for LOINC’s translation volunteers to receive files and upload translation updates. This subsite, exclusive to translators, debuted in November 2025.
- Detailed Part Model on LOINC detail pages – To help users understand the relationship between an individual LOINC term and its composite Parts, a new Part Model section to each detail page to show these linkages was created. For example, the page for 20120-2 illustrates the individual Parts (identified by LP codes) for the primary LOINC axes but also the sub Parts within Component, Time, and System.
- New Name Effective Date Release Artifact – A new artifact will be introduced shortly after the 2.82 release and included in all subsequent releases. It will provide a rolling, historical record (dating back to 2020) of the effective version for changes to LOINC name values, including the Fully Specified Name, Short Name, Long Common Name, Consumer Name, and Display Name.
- Preparations for more frequent releases – We have initiated planning and implementing the necessary technical infrastructure and process changes to support the transition to a more frequent release cadence. These changes are expected to decrease turnaround time by allowing us to focus on smaller, more manageable releases with a greater degree of automation.
You can read more about all changes in the LOINC Release Notes in the LOINC Knowledge Base.