Re: [Gnumed-devel] state of test results handling

[Karsten Hilbert]

On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 12:30:51PM +0100, Adrian Midgley wrote:

> Our lab reports results with a _reference range_
Same here. GNUmed additionally offers a "clinical target
range" as per previous suggestion by Jim.

> rather than making a statement about normality.
Our labs may or may not provide that in addition.

> 1 in 20 results will be expected to be outside the reference range
> without indicating pathology.
That's acknowledged. Hence "ab*normal*" as opposed to
"pathological".

> I frequently mark a group of results - liver function tests for instance
> - - as normal despite one of them being outside the reference range.
Yep, GNUmed supports that.

> SOme patients have a congenitally different result on some measurement
> from the general run, a large but trivial example is those with
> GIlbert's syndrome having a higher bilirubin.
Those can be marked "normal" by the attending clinician --
although they would still be abnormal depending on the
reference group -- which can be recorded in GNUmed, too ;-)

The high bilirubin in Gilbert's isn't clinically
significant, however, which can be assigned independant of
"normality".

> Possibly the concept we are dealing with is less "normality" and more
> "remarkability".

In fact we are dealing with both and both are trackable
within GNUmed...

Karsten
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