Summary
Background: Treatment of patients picked up by emergency services can be improved by data transfer
ahead of arrival. Care given to emergency patients can be assessed and improved through
data analysis. Both goals require electronic data transfer from the emergency medical
services (EMS) to the hospital information system. Therefore a generic semantic standard
is needed.
Objectives: Objective of this paper is to test the suitability of the international nomenclature
Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC) to encode the core data-sets
for rescue service protocols (MIND 2 and MIND 3). Encoding diagnosis and medication
categories using ICD-10 and ATC were also assessed.
Methods: Protocols were broken down into concepts, assigned to categories, translated and
manually mapped to LOINC codes. Each protocol was independently encoded by two healthcare
professionals and in case of discrepancies a third expert was consulted to reach a
consensus.
Results: Currently 39% of parameters could be mapped to LOINC. Additional use of other coding
systems such as International Statis -tical Classification of Diseases and Related
Health Problems (ICD-10) for diagnoses and Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification
System (ATC) for medications increases the rate of ‘mappable’ parameters to 56%.
Conclusions: Although the coverage is low, mapping has shown that LOINC is suitable to encode
concepts of the rescue services. In order to create a generic semantic model to be
applied in the field our next step is to request new LOINC codes for the missing concepts.
Keywords
Pre-hospital emergency medicine - electronic pre-hospital patient care report system
- LOINC - Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine - intersectoral communication
