How to model lab/test results in CIEL

[darius (Darius Jazayeri)]

In another thread @burke suggested that we should be adding “interpretation” as a new column on the obs table:

Having age and gender specific ranges in OpenMRS

While FHIR does support many-to-one ranges per observation, most labs will report a single reference range (the “normal” range) ± additional text with the result. Labs don’t typically report critical or absolute ranges with the results. This leads to something I left out: the interpretation (aka abnormal flag): add interpretation column to the obs table. This would either store the codes in HL7 Table 0078 or be a FK to concept (FK may be overkill). Since the determination of the abnormal fla…

At present Bahmni is already storing lab tests in an obs group with an additional boolean obs for normal/abnormal.

So, I guess the long-run idea is that you’d store the normal/abnormalness directly on the obs that’s the test+value, but I could see us adding it as an additional concept in the concept set under discussion, to support platform versions < 2.1 (or whenever this gets added).