title: [Standardization of terminology in laboratory medicine I].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Standardization of medical terminology is essential for data transmission between health-care institutions or clinical laboratories and for maximizing the benefits of information technology. Purpose of our study was to standardize the medical terms used in the clinical laboratory, such as test names, units, terms used in result descriptions, etc. During the first year of the study, we developed a standard database of concept names for laboratory terms, which covered the terms used in government health care centers, their branch offices, and primary health care units.
  
  
  METHODS
  Laboratory terms were collected from the electronic data interchange (EDI) codes from National Health Insurance Corporation (NHIC), Logical Observation Identifier Names and Codes (LOINC) database, community health centers and their branch offices, and clinical laboratories of representative university medical centers. For standard expression, we referred to the English-Korean/ Korean-English medical dictionary of Korean Medical Association and the rules for foreign language translation. Programs for mapping between LOINC DB and EDI code and for translating English to Korean were developed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A Korean standard laboratory terminology database containing six axial concept names such as components, property, time aspect, system (specimen), scale type, and method type was established for 7,508 test observations. Short names and a mapping table for EDI codes and Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) were added. Synonym tables for concept names, words used in the database, and six axial terms were prepared to make it easier to find the standard terminology with common terms used in the field of laboratory medicine.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Here we report for the first time a Korean standard laboratory terminology database for test names, result description terms, result units covering most laboratory tests in primary healthcare centers.
authors: Department of Laboratory Medicine, School of Medicine, Korea University, Seoul, Korea.
authors: Soo Young
authors: SY
authors: Yoon
authors: Jong Hyun
authors: JH
authors: Yoon
authors: Won Ki
authors: WK
authors: Min
authors: Hwan Sub
authors: HS
authors: Lim
authors: Junghan
authors: J
authors: Song
authors: Seok Lae
authors: SL
authors: Chae
authors: Chang Kyu
authors: CK
authors: Lee
authors: Jung Ah
authors: JA
authors: Kwon
authors: Kap No
authors: KN
authors: Lee
mesh_terms: D019411:Clinical Laboratory Techniques / Q000145:classification* / Q000592:standards; D016208:Databases, Factual; D007723:Korea; D007802:Language; D039703:Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D017432:Unified Medical Language System