Healthcare organisations often work with multiple external laboratories in the region to request lab tests. This is often a laborious process that involves a mountain of paperwork. In a time when so much is possible, this sounds pretty strange - what is the difficulty in this process and how can it still be successfully digitalised?
Each lab has its own work process
The work process of laboratories is not established nationally (or even regionally). There are many differences in the systems used by each lab and how data can be exchanged with them. This makes it difficult to digitalise the work process around putting out lab orders and receiving results - the process cannot be set up one size fits all.
Setting up for flexibility
The solution to this problem lies in letting go of the idea of really wanting to arrive at a one-size-fits-all process. You can work toward one process, but you have to make sure that this process can facilitate flexibility .
Imagine the following scenario: Lab A charges higher costs for a certain test than Lab B does. So you want your employees to go only to Laboratory B for these specific tests. You would then need two different lab order forms: the one for Lab A does not show the option to request these tests, while Lab B does.
When your healthcare organisation is able set up the lab order forms per laboratory as needed, this flexibility is there.
Standards for exchange
The same actually applies to the actual exchange of data between the healthcare organisation and the laboratory - one lab uses the HL7 standard for digital data exchange, another Edifact, yet another HL7 FHIR. As such, you cannot stipulate that data exchange is always done via Edifact, for example - flexibility is also required here. For sending and retrieving data, it must then be possible to define per lab which exchange standard will be used.
Differing terminology
The terminology used for the different lab tests also often differs from lab to lab - so in the lab order form the correct terminology should be able to be included. This requires translation, which again must be set up per lab.
Digitalising the process flexibly with Lab24
With the Lab24 module, we provide the flexibility a healthcare organisation needs to efficiently collaborate digitally with multiple labs. During implementation, if necessary, we ensure that each lab has a separate lab order form and that your organisation can define for each lab whether orders and results are exchanged by HL7, Edifact or FHIR. Lab24 also has a so-called 'Lab translator' available - this ensures that lab orders are received by the labs using terminology familiar to them.
This way, your organisation can also say goodbye to the paperwork surrounding lab orders and lab results: standardisation with flexibility.
Want to learn more about Lab24 or perhaps see a demo of the system? Feel free to contact us.