Regenstrief Institute’s latest LOINC® content update on August 12, introduces two new linguistic variants: Arabic, for users in Jordan, and Czech, for users in the Czech Republic. With these additions, LOINC is now available in 22 languages.
“Expanding the number of supported languages improves the accessibility and adoption of LOINC around the world,” said Marjorie Rallins, DPM, M.S., executive director of Health Data Standards (HDS) at Regenstrief. “Making LOINC content available in more languages strengthens interoperability by enabling users to work with data in the language that best supports their clinical and operational needs.”
The HDS unit at Regenstrief, which develops and curates LOINC, has released more than 4,000 new and updated concepts in version 2.81. This update includes enhancements to the PhenX Toolkit — a resource for researchers that uses LOINC codes to represent data — and improved standardized assessment content.
LOINC version 2.81 is available for download from the LOINC website and via the LOINC Terminology Service using Health Level Seven (HL7®) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®).
Summary of specific updates:
- Introduces a new LABORDERS.ONTOLOGY class, creating nearly 2,000 new lab test ordering concepts to support hierarchical organization.
- Updates more than 350 trial concepts in the PhenX Toolkit.
- Adds nearly 400 new concepts covering food and environmental allergens and immune response triggers.
- Modernizes assessment tools in the Hospice Quality Reporting program, including the addition of the Hospice Outcomes and Patient Evaluation (HOPE) tool set to replace the Hospice Item Set starting October 2025.
- Releases new content to support HL7® FHIR® integration, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant data exchange and initiatives related to drivers of health through collaborations like HL7 Gravity and European Health Data Space.
LOINC, short for Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes, is a global standard for health terminology. Created and maintained at Regenstrief, LOINC enables the identification, exchange and collection of data across health systems and is used around the world.
For any inquiries about the version 2.81 release and to have discussions with others in the LOINC community, or to post a topic, question or concern, go to the LOINC Community Forum.
LOINC is a code system available to users royalty free. Its long-term funding is supported by U.S. federal agencies and other organizations. HDS at Regenstrief releases updates to LOINC twice per year, in February and August.
About LOINC®
LOINC® was created in 1994 at Regenstrief Institute to facilitate interoperability in healthcare. There was a growing trend to send clinical data electronically between healthcare entities, a practice that has now become ubiquitous. Today, it contains more than 108,000 concepts for everything from an albumin level to a zygomatic arch X-ray report. For each concept, LOINC contains many other rich details, such as synonyms, units of measure and carefully crafted descriptions.
