Pure and Applied Chemistry

Synopsis: A coding scheme has been prepared for general clinical chemistry.

The present document is part ten (X) of a series on properties and units in the clinical laboratory sciences initiated in 1987.

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The size and complexity of parts III and IV are such that their lists will be presented in electronic format. This is for ease of handling and to facilitate expression of concepts in different languages.

At the end, systematic terms, elaborated according to international standards and recommendations should be available in the different domains of clinical laboratory sciences. The core of the series is code value strings representing concepts, that in combination delineate and define each type of property regardless of linguistic expression, thus avoiding errors during translation between languages.

Clinical Laboratory Sciences are characterised by the exacting nature of the work performed and the demand for an accurate presentation of the outcome. Further the domain is transnational, international or "global".

The adherent informatics system therefore needs to identify the findings accurately and to present them with the degree of detail required. At the same time it has to facilitate the transfer over linguistic and cultural barriers without distortion or loss of clarity, in order to promote clear, unambiguous, meaningful and fully informative communication in different terminologies.

The degree to which a message (such as a laboratory report) needs to be expressed in a formal, systematic language depends on the geographical, linguistic, social or professional distance between the communicating parties. The greater the distance, the greater the risk of misunderstanding.

Within one laboratory, local jargon terms may be used which are usually well understood between colleagues, but which would not be sufficiently widely known for communication with the outside world. Likewise, a laboratory and its local community of users, such as hospital or community physicians, may use a "local dialect" of the language of laboratory medicine which is well understood by all concerned; but when the communication possibilities are wider, even transnational, risks of serious misunderstanding arise.

The purpose of this document is to apply the IFCC-IUPAC recommended syntax structures for request and report and to create a systematic terminology which can be used as the basis for encoding laboratory messages in the domain of general clinical chemistry. This is to facilitate communication of messages about such properties through computing and telecommunication between databases, messages that contain sufficient information to allow translation from and to the required "local dialect" at each end.

Each entry in the list is formed following the rules given in part I and part XI of the series.

The systematic names recommended here are primarily for the purpose of unambiguous data exchange. Their use in routine language by clinician or laboratory practitioners is optional but encouraged.