1.1 Purpose This European Standard provides a structure aiding the representation, e.g. systematic terms or coding systems, of dedicated kinds of property, including dedicated kinds of quantity, in laboratory medicine. The structure for representation is intended to facilitate the unambiguous communication of messages containing information about properties.
1.2 Field of application This European Standard is applicable to all branches of laboratory medicine and other bodies offering laboratory analytic services. Examinations performed in the physician's office, at the bedside, or in the home are considered to be part of the laboratory medicine domain and thus this European Standard applies. 1.3 Uses This structure for representation constitutes the essential basis for development of nomenclatures and coding systems intended for use in unambiguous and fully informative communication about properties, which fall within the field of application. Every such communication, including requests to and reports from clinical laboratories, and information retrieval for management reporting, research and reimbursement, will require additional information which is outside the scope of this European Standard. 1.4 Limitations It should be emphasized that it is not the purpose of this European Standard to standardize the language used by health care practitioners in requesting or reporting clinical laboratory data. It may, however, be used as a guide by those who wish to adopt systematic terms for routine requesting and reporting of laboratory data. The syntax used for representing dedicated kinds-of-property is outside the scope of this European Standard, as are syntactic rules for the construction of codes in coding schemes. The purpose is not to standardize the presentation of properties or kinds-of-property in user interfaces of computer systems nor the presentation in printed documents.