2026-03-05 LabMCoP Meeting Notes
Date
Mar 5, 2026
Attendees
Present | Name | Organization |
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X | Nancy Cornish | CDC |
X | Manjula Dharmawardhana | CDC |
X | Riki Merrick | APHL |
- | Christina Gallegos | APHL |
X | Amy Liu | Inductive Health / APHL |
| Raj Dash | Duke / CAP |
X | John Snyder | Pragmatic Terminologies, LLC |
X | Andrea Pitkus | UW |
X | Kathy Walsh | Labcorp |
| Rob Hausam | Hausam Consulting |
| Pam Banning | 3M |
| Elissa Passiment |
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Upcoming OOO |
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Follow up from last call |
| Importance of performed test date/time when same sample is being used for confirmatory testing at a later time what about Add-on testing - would need to know the exact specimen as part of the order, but then also there would be more than 1 result on the same specimen, so performed test date/time is also important for that understanding when the different parts of a panel were completed and the final report is only done when the last test is completed |
STEC SNOMED CT question from OR PHL | Riki | We need a custom code and language to be closer and more specific to “Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, Non-O157, unable to further serotype” to be built. Looking at the options that you’ve provided, nothing quite fits as we need it to. To elaborate, part of the testing workflow uses Latex Agglutination to confirm its “Non-O157” and then PCR is used to confirm it’s “Shiga toxin -producing”, and lastly serotyping is performed to try and identify which O antigens are present, but Micros are unable to confirm beyond “Non-O157”. Need a new concept for Shiga-toxin-producing E. coli non-O157, but need to understand, if Shiga-toxin producing always = enterohemorrhagic, or not need to understand what LOINC they are using for this overarching conclusion - maybe https://loinc.org/53946-0/ ? use of the finding hierarchy for not isolated = https://browser.ihtsdotools.org/?perspective=full&conceptId1=394870008&edition=MAIN/SNOMEDCT-US&release=&languages=en ? often not used in the LIMS, where they are just using the organism hierachy LIMS has a lot of drop down menu and not specifically coded, they are sent as free text for micro and blood bank, the LIMS often set these up as workflow steps, not a specific results (so you can add on based on the results of the earlier step in the process - often does not allow adding LOINCs and SCT codes for these For the reported result of the culture, when an organism is not isolated should be mapped to the clincal finding hierarchy (if that field is mappable) Sensitivity reporting (mapping to SCT in OBX-5, but not in OBX-8 where using HL70078) Mapping OBR-4 (orders) to LOINC for the reflex tests is desired by PHA, but often not supported in the LIMS Riki will follow up and then submit the concept to John |
Specimen CMT terms | Christina | not today |
Follow up items |
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Lab tests as procedures or orderables | Do we still need this? | Recommendation by SNOMED is that the Observable entity hierarchy be used for both ordering and resulting. As for the technique hierarchy, that in no way is intended to be used for either ordering or resulting laboratory tests. Those concepts are used to model both observables and procedures. SNOMED LOINC extension: https://browser.loincsnomed.org/?perspective=full&conceptId1=363787002&edition=MAIN/LOINC/2025-09-21&release=&languages=en The problem is that major EHR-s vendors have set up CPOE using Procedures for orders to initiate a workflow (that creates the triggering event in the system) - that’s where the push-back comes from. There is a CPT to SNOMED CT mapping (as a paid mapping available from AMA), but no LOINC mapping. Can we reach out to CAP Informatics, ADLM Informatics and ASCLS Informatics to get their take on where Lab tests should live We had said we would work through the Colonoscopy example: Reference links: clinical guidelines: Official journal of the American College of Gastroenterology | ACG Quality Indicators: Official journal of the American College of Gastroenterology | ACG
There is this question in the LOINC Community: https://forum.loinc.org/t/assistance-creating-a-value-set-for-all-loinc-procedure-concepts/2993 it is related to this US Core FHIR Change request: https://jira.hl7.org/browse/FHIR-54415 Answer to this one is that in USCDI Procedure (https://isp.healthit.gov/taxonomy/term/781/uscdi-v6) does not list LOINC as applicable Vocab standard in any verion, so remove it. Often folks think of lab tests as procedures, because they can be ordered in CPOE (and outsidde the US, in the UK for example that’s how folks have modeled those, which is why LOINC was adding more of the high level order codes in 2.81 release, so we still should tackle the LOINC community question. John was working on creatign an intesnional valueset definition based on class + type and maybe a few other attributes |
Call adjourned |
| 12:02 PM ET _ below not discussed |
Specimen CMT - Hosting Options |
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European Semantic work |
| Link to the German FHIR IG around suceptibility testing: Confluence page: Ask if Rob can keep us updated |
Specimen CMT pilot implementers |
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Specimen CMT - education |
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Specimen CMT - tracking implementation impact
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Future projects for this call after CMT |
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Recording:
If you are interested in the recording, please email riki.merrick@aphl.org
Chat:
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