The Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC) system was developed to facilitate the electronic transmission of laboratory results to hospitals, physicians, third-party payers, and other users of laboratory data. Initiated in 1994 by the Regenstrief Institute at Indiana University, LOINC pro vides a standard set of universal names and codes for identifying individual laboratory and clinical results. These standard codes enable users to merge clinical results from disparate sources (Regenstrief Institute, n.d.).
LOINC codes have a fixed length field of seven characters. Current codes range from three to seven characters long. There are six parts in the LOINC name structure: component/analyte, property, time aspect, system, scale type, and method. The syntax for a name follows this pattern