Thanks @mseaton… for the purpose of the indicator as I understand it I would agree 100%
Tangentially, we really have been struggling with the distinction between a result of “LDL” and “<300” and I’d really love to get a clear answer to the question that @ddesimone poses here:
Pasted here for convenience:
"We are getting feedback from our site team in Malawi that the viral load results come in one of 3 forms:
- Qualitative LDL - lower than detectable limit
- Quantitative - a precise result in copies/ml
- A quantitative “less than” value – sometimes the result will come as something like “< 500 copies/ml”. We are being told that this is not the same as LDL and also this is not necessarily the detectable lower limit of the machine. It’s a completely different way sometimes the results are communicated.
Historically, we’ve only captured the first 2 and were planning on moving forward with a model similar to that referenced in that older tread .
Does anyone else capture “less than” results like this? Would be interested in hearing what others are doing!"
@burke @akanter @jteich any thoughts on the above thread or who might be best to answer it? Any lab experts in the OpenMRS community I’m not thinking of? Even though we’ve been told otherwise, from the modeling I’m seeing elsewhere I’m continuing to doubt the that third bullet point above “A quantitative “less than” value…” is really a distinct thing, rather than just shorthand to report LDL and the detection limit of the machine.
Take care, Mark