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Results Processing

This chapter explains basics of the results processing in Iris. Learn more about available processors in this chapter.

Text and Numbers

Almost all communication protocols use text-based format. That means that results are sent as text, i.e. numeric value 4.23 will be sent as 4.23 (or 4,23 if instrument uses comma as a decimal delimiter). No matter of the expected type of the test result, Iris will always try to parse incoming results as if they were numbers (usually they are). Some protocols are result type-aware (for instance HL71) in which case, numeric value is obtained at a driver level. Due to variety of reasons, such as measurement or linearity limits, it's common to have an expression rather than a value, e.g. <2.0 instead of 2.0 and that certainly has a clinical meaning.

Despite the above considerations, many results are not numeric at all. Many urine strip readers produce arbitrary units (negative, +-, +, 2+, etc.), AST2 analyzers produce antibiotic susceptibility values (R, S, I) and so on. Some instruments (mainly older ones) send impossible results, such as negative concentrations or use their proprietary format and conventions.

Iris handles all of the result type smoothly and gives you the ability to process them appropriately before they are stored in your LIS.

Result Bag

Iris handle results as group of values - Result Bag. It consists of the following properties

Property Description
TextValue Result as string, e.g. 5.0, 2+, <5.0, neg, etc.
NumericPrefix Prefix (operator) string such as <, >,>>, etc.
NumericValue Result as a number, nullable decimal
Flags Array of Flag objects

Flag object

Flags are additional information related to the test result. It could be warning for sample quality, abnormality of the value, QC3-related information, etc. Flag could originate at a driver level (i.e. sent by the instrument, herein called instrument flag) or at a processor level (i.e. as a result of processing step inside Iris, herein called processing flag).

Flag consists of the following properties

Property Description
Code Code, e.g. LIN, QC, etc.
Value Meaning, e.g. Outside linearity limit, etc.
Level Severity: Info, Warning

Processing Flow

Upon receival from the instrument, every result is processed in a uniform matter as shown on the diagram below.

flowchart TD

    RR([Raw Result Bag])

    RB[Initial Result Bag]

    PR[[Processor]]

    RR --> |Parsing| RB

    RB --> PR

    PR --> |0..n| PR

    PR --> |Formatting| OUT

    OUT([Final Result Bag])

  1. Health Level 7 International - the organization which defines a set of data transmission format widely used in healthcare, including laboratory medicine. ↩

  2. Antibiotic Susceptibility Test - test where given pathogen is tested for antibiotic susceptibility. ↩

  3. Laboratory Quality Control ↩