Concept explainer
Laboratory and imaging orders
Explains how laboratory and imaging orders are raised, sent to the performing service and matched with the results that return.
A laboratory or imaging order records what you want performed, reaches the service that performs it, and pairs with the result when it returns. This page follows both kinds of investigation from the moment you raise one to the moment a verified result lands on the record.
Both kinds are investigations. You raise them the same way you raise any order, and Forge routes each to the service that performs it. The result returns onto the same order.
Raising the order
You choose the test or study from the catalogue and place it inside the patient's visit. Each kind carries its own detail.
The sample the test runs on.
The tube or container the sample needs.
The expected range the result reads against.
The low and high values that mark a result critical.
The kinds a clinician can raise are set out in what can be ordered.
Reaching the performing service
When you place the order, it routes to the service that performs it, drawn from the catalogue item. The order appears on that service's worklist. The performing service sees the order it has to act on even where it holds a narrow view of the wider chart, so the bench works from the request without the whole record.
How a result returns
A result reaches the order by one of two paths. A technician enters it by hand on the result form, or it arrives from an external system through the on-site bridge, orophin. Either way the result is captured as a form attached to the order and the record, built in Glyph.
The form that carries a result is described in forms on orders. The bridge that carries results in from outside systems sits in the bridge.
The second check
A result carries a two-person check before it is trusted.
Entry and verification are separate
A result is verified by a person other than the one who entered it. Entry and verification are separate rights, held by different people, so a result reaches its trusted state under two sets of eyes. Cirith Manager decides who may enter and who may verify.
Abnormal and critical values ride on the result as data, so a reviewer sees them plainly. The path a critical result takes sits in critical results.
Correcting a result
A corrected result appends a new version. The earlier value stays on the order, marked superseded, so the history reads as it stood at each point. The trusted state is the verified version, and a correction runs the two-person check again.
Reading a study
An imaging study opens in the image study viewer, in the browser, tied to the patient and the order. You zoom, pan and measure without leaving the record. The reading tools sit in reading a study.
Common questions
Where does a result appear?
On the order it was raised against, and in the patient's record. Both point at the same result form.
Who may verify a result?
A person other than the one who entered it. Entry and verification are held as separate rights.
What happens to a corrected result?
The correction lands as a new version and the earlier value stays, marked superseded, so nothing in the history is overwritten.
Follow a result from the bench in record a result.