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Laboratory information systems, 2023




 
 

Reports revisited—panel on preferences and pain points

November 2023—Reports—integrated or otherwise—were up for discussion when CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle convened online in October a group of informatics experts, who spoke of the need for simplicity in a time of growing complexity, ease of access, where Epic isn’t strong. The full conversation follows.

During last year’s roundtable, the panel was clear about three important themes that had emerged from the pandemic. We had a need for device integration in the world of lab information systems. We also had a need for report integration in the LIS and EHR. And ease of access was emphasized as things become increasingly complex and many more clinicians and others are interested in laboratory results. On the other hand, some people are more interested in a full report. Mark Tuthill, do those same themes remain important, and is there anything that has emerged in the past year you want to mention?
J. Mark Tuthill, MD, division head, pathology informatics, Henry Ford Health System: These are increasingly pressing needs, particularly in molecular pathology automation, where end-to-end solutions require device integration. With reports becoming more complex, viewability and usability are more essential than ever.

We have had at least three incidents in which people were viewing the HL7 data in Epic and made mistakes because they didn’t click the link to our full-featured PDF report. So I put in a push to Epic and said that our PDF report should be the primary view a clinician sees. Apparently Epic still cannot do that. So we may need to turn off our HL7 display in Epic and force all clinicians to click on the link that says “View PDF” because we’re having problems with people rushing through data. The PDF display is excellent; it’s a clean report. It will also allow us to do things in the reporting that we can’t do without that viewability.

Azizi

Amjad Azizi, do you have customers who find that the display of data in the EHR is sometimes problematic?
Amjad Azizi, director, informatics strategy and solutions, Sysmex America: Yes. We have a cloud-based workflow solution [Caresphere Workflow Solution]. Still, we have customers who say they prefer a small-scale solution, which is our reporting solution, over an LIS solution because of the lack of data integrity. The data shows a solidity from one source and there is no consolidated view to get all the data from the same local LISs. That creates timing issues, especially when they must comment on special cases related to patients, and timely consolidated reports play a major role in ensuring patient safety and timely results.

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