Examinations structure

Important question in Akita and LIS iLab is the model of examinations. By examination we will understand orderable item, e.g. Glucose in serum or Complete Blood Count. In LIS iLab there are two types of examinations - tests and panels (profiles). Tests are a single analytes, e.g. measurement of glucose concentration in serum. Panels (profiles) from other hand are sets of tests, e.g. CBC, Lipid panel, etc.

Technically speaking, panel is a set of different parameters whereas profile is a set of single parameter measured in different conditions. So the Lipid panel (LOINC code 24331-1) is a panel, but glucose response test (fasting glucose and glucose X hours after meal, for instance 72171-2) is a profile. In different countries one or other word is preferred, or both are in use. However, as a data structure in LIS iLab they are equivalents.

Panels may have fixed contents as well as floating. There is an endpoint for panel definitions where all possible tests (parameters) are listed as well as if they are optional or not.

Example for fixed-items panel is the Lipid panel (LOINC code 24331-1) which have to contain as results following fixed parameters - Cholesterol, Triglycerides, HDL Cholesterol, LDL Cholesterol and VLDL Cholesterol.

The classic example panel with optionals is Erythrocyte morphology panel (LOINC code 58408-6). This panel may contain tens of parameters, but by convention, only pathologic findings are reported. That means, you order a panel with code 58408-6 and when getting results, you could have any combination of allowed child items.

Given test may appear in many panels, as well as be orderable solely. The most common example is Glucose in serum which usually could be ordered separately or included as first point of a series in mentioned above Glucose response test. Akita will not check orders for duplicates.

Important notice

Note that LIS iLab comes with no data and all of the the examinations are user-defined, so the above cases are just a well-known examples and probably will vary from lab to lab.

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