Validation

When results from the instruments are received and processed, they must be validated to appear int the target LIS. This could be done manually (through Iris UI) or automatically. In terms of laboratory process, Iris validation should be considered as technical validation (i.e. made by laboratory technicians). Medical validation (made by laboratory doctors) from other hand, usually is done in the LIS and is not a subject of Iris functionality scope.

Manual Validation

Manual validation is done in the graphical user interface (GUI) of Iris on test or sample level.

Automatic Validation

To switch automatic validation On or Off, you have to define validation policy for every instrument. If you switch on automatic validation, results will be evaluated through validation rules and if they passed the rules, they will be sent to the LIS.

Fully Automatic Validation

There are instruments that have advanced software for result analysis which contains many rules to consider given result (or set of results) as valid and acceptable for release. Such instruments usually have an option in host settings, where you could define which results to be sent to the host (Iris). Also, they usually provide user interface for results reviewing and technical validation. If that is the case, probably the best solution is to switch automatic validation for that particular instrument, as it is not needed to validate the results twice - in the instrument's software and in Iris. The idea is that all the results coming from such an instrument, should be considered as valid and they will be sent to LIS automatically. Typical example for such instruments are blood counters, urine analyzers, etc. The advantage of that approach is that the instrument "knows" better how to analyze the results and has much better validation screens, where additional information (histograms, cell photos, etc.) is displayed. The downside is that you will not be able to see on screen previous values for particular parameter as well as results from other instruments, making plausibility control a bit harder.

Validation Rules

To avoid automatic validation of probably incorrect results, on top on instrument's policy, you may define rules for every test. In validation process, the test's rules have higher priority, which means that depending on set up criteria some results (or sets) will be kept in Iris for further review and manual validation.