Tracking LOINC-SNOMED CT Concepts in the Observable Entity Hierarchy

General
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I have a few questions regarding concepts in the LOINC-SNOMED CT extension, specifically within the Observable Entity hierarchy:

  1. If a concept exists in the LOINC-SNOMED CT extension, is there a possibility that it will also be published in the International (INT) Edition within the Observable Entity hierarchy?

  2. If so, is there a way to track when such a concept will be included in SNOMED CT INT Edition?

  3. Additionally, if we require a concept that exists in LOINC but is not yet available in the LOINC-SNOMED CT extension, is there a mechanism to track when that concept will be created and published in the extension?

Any guidance or references on tracking the publication or creation of concepts in LOINC-SNOMED CT would be greatly appreciated.

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Hi Maryam,

1- No, if a concept exists in the LOINC-SNOMED extension, it will not be created in the International edition; it will stay as part of the extension, and the advice to implementers is to include the extension in their national editions if they want to use the level of detail provided by LOINC to the observable entities content.

3- If the concept is a new concept in LOINC, and it is in-scope for the extension, it should be included in the next LOINC - SNOMED extension update. The update frequency is still being defined; the most recent edition is from September 2025. Some areas of LOINC are currently out of scope for inclusion in the SNOMED extension. The latest extension includes more than 41,000 concepts, including 70% of the top 20,000 most used LOINC concepts.

You can see more details in the FAQ:

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Maryam,

I little expansion on @alopez comments. Content that exists in the LOINC extension may be promoted to the International release if it is identified as being necessary to sufficiently define a SNOMED CT International concept. As stated, we will not be creating content in the International release that duplicates content that exists in the LOINC extension.

The focus of the project to date has been to complete the coverage of the top 20,000 most used LOINC terms; however, if there are terms that you need that are not included in the top 20,000, you are encouraged to communicate your feedback to Regenstrief to stress the importance of a particular set of LOINC terms. Feedback can be submitted via the link: Feedback – LOINC / SNOMED CT

This is also a way to obtain information on future releases as well as other questions about the future of the LOINC extension.

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