The NPU Steering Committee welcomes Norway

The Norwegian Directorate of Health has been acknowledged as a National Release Centre (NRC) by the NPU Steering Committee. The NRC serves as liaison between national users of the NPU terminology, the NPU Secretariat and the Steering Committee and maintains, updates and publishes the Norwegian Laboratory Terminology which is correlated to a subset of the international (English) version. The NRC communicates information about the Norwegian Laboratory Terminology through the website of the Norwegian Directorate of Health https://helsedirektoratet.no/helsefaglige-kodeverk/laboratoriekodeverket. This provides a link to the current version of The Norwegian Laboratory Terminology, the user manual, and other reference material. The Norwegian Laboratory Terminology is mandatory for communication laboratory results. The NRC consults with members of reference groups in each field of expertise not fully corresponding to the NPU clinical laboratory sciences subject fields; Clinical pharmacology, Medical biochemistry, Immunology and Transfusion medicine, Clinical microbiology, Genetics and Pathology. The Norwegian Laboratory Terminology is updated 10 times per annum. The Norwegian Release Center is looking forward to contributing to the use and development of the NPU terminology. Meetings of the Steering Committee: The NPU Steering Committee meets every two months by Skype. The meetings deal with the governance and strategic direction of NPU terminology. A face to face meeting of the Steering Committee is being held in Trondheim, Norway in September 2015.