MU-LabIntegrate

1. Electronically receive clinical laboratory test results in a structured format and display such results in human readable format.

2. Electronically display in human readable format any clinical laboratory tests that have been received with LOINC® codes.

3. Electronically display all the information for a test report specified at 42 CFR 493.1291(c)(1) through (7).6

4. Enable a user to electronically update a patient’s Record based upon received laboratory test results.

VistA does store data in a structured format and can receive data but only if it was ordered properly in the first place and the order sent to the lab. The problem of receiving data that was not previously ordered and documented in the standard way used for sending samples to a referral laboratory needs to be tackled and will be as part of the VistA Lab Project (now on hiatus) that meets on Monday nights.

Also, the data received will need to be associated with tests within VistA in order to be pulled and graphed properly. This also has to deal with receiving data from multiple labs.

This is not an easy problem to solve and was going to be part of the project being done in Hawaii with RPMS, but do to the untimely death of Art Koga whose company was going to do the work and provide it back to the community with the permission of the U of Hawaii, there may not be any contribution from Hawaii now.