HL7 Europe Laboratory Report, published by HL7 Europe. This guide is not an authorized publication; it is the continuous build for version 0.2.0-ci built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) CI Build. This version is based on the current content of https://github.com/hl7-eu/laboratory/ and changes regularly. See the Directory of published versions

Challenges

This page aims to summarize some of the challenges to be faced dealing with Laboratory Report in the European context, without pretending to be exhaustive.

Terminology

As in other care areas, the adoption of different terminologies is one of the main interoperability challenges to be faced, with the known limitations on relying on terminology mappings.

For test coding there are in fact two main international laboratory terminology systems that are being used in Europe:

• Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC), and
• Nomenclature for Properties and Units (NPU).

with the exception of UK using SNOMED CT.

The same issue arises with other coded elements as specimen types, anatomic specification, specimen collection, processing and examination techniques, devices, containers, measurement units, and ordinal or nominal-scale test results.

Regularly, test qualitative results are expressed via SNOMED CT concepts, quantitatively measured results are documented by standardized units, which are expressed preferably via UCUM to allow computer processing. As SNOMED CT is the most extensive terminology in health care, this code system offers solutions for the coded representation of laboratory-related facts in most cases.