INTERPRETATIVE REPORTING AND ALARMING BASED ON LABORATORY DATA

The utilisation of laboratory services for patient diagnosis and manag ement involves many steps with both clinical and laboratory components . The clinical components include the decision to order a test, interp retation of the test results and actions taken on the basis of the res ults. The laboratory components on the other hand include receipt of t he request, specimen collection, preparation and analysis, result entr y, test result validation and verification and reporting of the result s. In this paper, which is part of the Open Labs project, we concentra te on the post-analytical applications which include interpretation an d reporting of the laboratory results to the users in primary care and in high dependency care units. The final objective of the work descri bed is to develop generic modules which can be integrated both with an Open laboratory information system architecture and existing laborato ry information processing environment.