Metadatazione delle tipologie di documenti clinici: un approccio alla standardizzazione mediante LOINC

Abstract

Achieving semantic interoperability in the healthcare information ecosystem is crucial for efficient data exchange, yet challenging due to the heterogeneous naming conventions used for clinical documents. Although standardized coding systems such as LOINC® exist, which provide unique identifiers for concepts, the heterogeneity of document names creates ambiguity and hinders the exchange and long-term preservation of documents, especially in federated electronic health record systems and for data migration between long-term preservation services. This paper describes the methodology adopted to standardize the documentType metadata for naming document types within a national digital preservation system by mapping local codes to the LOINC® standard. The quantitative results demonstrate the advantages of using LOINC as a tool for standardizing document type names and achieving interoperability. Furthermore, the qualitative reflections of the study contribute to enriching and promoting the debate among experts about knowledge organization, digital preservation and categorization of clinical documents.