Accessing a Patient’s Report History

If you are accessing an IOP facility, and you can access patient reports, and your current lab supports this feature, you can view almost all of the lab results for a patient from the past two years for tests ordered by other healthcare providers. This includes results from all participating labs (even ones that you cannot access), as long as an order for the patient has been placed with the requesting lab and the patient can be uniquely identified.

This feature does have some limitations:

• If informed consent was required for a particular test, you cannot view the results from that entire order.

• You cannot view point-of-care (POC) test results that were entered by a physician or hospital staff member. (You can view those that were entered by a Quest Diagnostics or contracted phlebotomist.)

To help you identify the appropriate reports, the list of available reports includes the order codes and test names, site ID of the performing lab, accession number, date when the tests were ordered, requisition number, client name and number, report status (Final or Partial), and result status (Normal, Abnormal, or See Report if the result status could not be determined). You can position the pointer over the site ID of the lab to see its full name.

You can limit the report history to a specific date range when the tests were ordered, and choose the reports that you want to access. You should access only those reports related to the condition that the physician is treating.

The selected reports can be printed or imported so that you can easily access them later. If you print multiple reports, they are combined into a single PDF file, and no modifications are made to any of them. If you import multiple reports, each one is imported separately as both a PDF file and an HL7 file. If the PDF version of the report can be modified by eLabs, it contains a comment that cites the original performing lab and client. If the report cannot be modified, it includes a cover sheet that provides information about the requesting lab, client, and requisition number as well as the performing lab, client, and requisition number. (The HL7 file includes an NTE segment that cites the original performing lab and client number.) Each imported report is assigned an appropriate requisition number for the requesting client. (Reports that are already associated with the requesting lab and client are not imported to avoid creating an extraneous requisition number.)

If a partial report is imported, it is replaced with the final version if that version is subsequently imported.

Although you can retrieve reports from only the past two years, after you have imported them, they remain available to you indefinitely via the Results > Patient Results menu for the requesting client. Whether these imported reports are handled as new reports or previously printed reports depends on circumstances related to the original client. The results from imported reports can also be included in cumulative and informatics reports, as well as advisory message reports.

Access a Patient’s Report History