Its function is to enable results of clinical laboratory examinations to be used safely across technology, time and geography.
To achieve this, the NPU terminology supplies: The purpose of the NPU terminology is to enable patient examination data to be safely transmitted between laboratory information systems, recognized, compared, reused in calculations, extracted for research or statistics, and stored for documentation, without loss of meaning.
It currently includes over 17 000 entries widely covering multiple disciplines in the field of clinical laboratory science including: The NPU terminology is supported by a joint committee (C-SC-NPU) of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) and a subcommittee of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).
The definition structure is based on the scientific concept of 'examination' – an examination studies one or more properties of a system (a delimited part of the universe).
While these documents formed the foundation for NPU entries applying to each scientific discipline, subsequent additions in the last decade have consisted primarily of "User driven" requests.
In 2014, Norway declared the NPU terminology mandatory on a national scale for most clinical laboratory fields.