Laboratories

The Laboratories screen is your location’s laboratory worklist. It lists the tests that have been ordered for patients, follows them from sample collection to result, and is where results are entered. Search for a patient to see that patient’s full laboratory history.

How a test moves through its statuses

Every test has a status, shown as a badge in the Status column:

Status	Meaning
Unfulfilled	Ordered, sample not yet taken.
Collected	Your clinic has taken the sample.
In Progress	Some results are in, others are still pending.
Fulfilled	Every result has been recorded or waived. The test is complete.
Will Not Fulfill	Cancelled because the test cannot be performed.
No Longer Needed	Cancelled because it is no longer clinically needed.

Fulfilled and the two cancelled statuses are final. A test cannot be reopened once it reaches one of them.

A test is made up of parameters: the individual values the panel measures, such as glucose or cholesterol within a metabolic panel. Each parameter is Pending until it has a result, Fulfilled when it does, or Waived when it will not get one. The test’s own status follows its parameters. Once none are pending, it becomes Fulfilled.

What the list shows

With no patient selected, the list shows tests collected at your current location that are still Collected or In Progress. These are the samples your site holds and still owes results for. Use the status chips to add Fulfilled tests to the list. Tests that have not been collected yet have no location, so they do not appear in this view.

When you search for a patient, the list switches to that patient’s tests from every location, showing Collected, In Progress and Fulfilled by default. With All locations on, every status can be selected, including Unfulfilled and the cancelled ones. Turn it off to see only the tests collected here.

Each row shows:

• External ID: your organization’s reference for the order, if one was entered; otherwise a short internal reference.
• Patient: on the location worklist only.
• Title and description of the order.
• Panel: the laboratory panel that was ordered.
• Status.
• Complete By: the date the test is due.

Filtering by date

The date filter first asks which date to use, because a test has several:

Option	Filters on
Ordered	When the test was ordered
Collected	When the sample was taken
Completed	When the test became Fulfilled
Reported	The date on an external laboratory’s report
Due	The Complete By date

The location worklist filters on Collected by default; a patient’s history filters on Ordered. Dates are read in your own time zone, so “today” means your today.

Ordering a test

Choose Add Laboratory, pick the patient, then choose a panel. The panel decides which parameters the test will have. Give the order a Title, a Complete By date, and optionally a Description, an External ID and Notes. The notes are saved as your comment on the order and shown in its details. The test is created as Unfulfilled with every parameter pending. Only panels still offered in the catalog can be ordered.

To find a panel, type at least two letters of its name. Two or three letters find panels with a word that starts with them; longer text finds the name anywhere, in your language or in another one the catalog has. The closest matches come first. Once you pick a panel, the form previews the parameters it measures, so you can check it is the right test before ordering. The Add External Results form searches panels the same way.

The panel catalog is the same for every organization and is maintained by Nightingale: panels and parameters cannot be added or edited from this screen. A panel that is retired from the catalog no longer appears in the search, but tests already ordered with it keep their parameters.

Working a test

Open the menu at the end of a row. Only the actions that apply to the test’s current status are offered.

View Details shows everything recorded on the test: its parameters and their values, any narrative findings, and its attachments. From here you can also add files and links (see Attachments).

Collect Sample (Unfulfilled tests) records that your clinic has taken the sample, at your current location. You can add where on the body it was taken and collection notes. The test becomes Collected.

Submit Results (Collected or In Progress tests) records values for some or all pending parameters. Results can be entered in several sessions as they arrive; the test stays In Progress until none are pending. Entering a value for a parameter that already has one corrects it, and entering one for a waived parameter replaces the waiver with the value. You can also record Findings and an Interpretation for tests whose result is written rather than numeric, such as cultures or pathology. The Report date is when the laboratory issued the result. It can be in the past, for results entered after the fact, but not in the future. Findings and interpretation can only be written by clinic staff. Files and links can be attached in the same form, and are saved together with the results. Results carry no notes of their own: the test keeps the notes it was ordered with, and the patient’s own note is theirs to write.

Waive Parameters (Collected or In Progress tests) marks selected pending parameters as never getting a result, with a required reason, for example because the sample was insufficient for that measurement.

Force Complete (Collected or In Progress tests) closes the test now. Every parameter still pending is waived, and the test becomes Fulfilled.

Cancel Laboratory (any test not yet Fulfilled) closes the test without a result, as Will Not Fulfill or No Longer Needed. This cannot be undone.

The cancel form requires a reason. It is saved in the test’s history along with who cancelled it and when. The history is not shown on this screen yet, but it is available through the API.

Results from outside laboratories

When a patient brings results from another laboratory, or a result arrives without an order, choose Add External Results. Pick the patient and panel, name the External Lab (required), and enter the values you have, attach a scan or photo of the report under Attachments, or both. A report attached on its own is enough. Any parameter you leave blank is waived. The test is created already Fulfilled and marked External. Caregiver Notes are saved as your comment on the new test.

Attachments

A test can carry files, such as a scanned report or a photo of a printout, and links to results hosted elsewhere. Files can be images, PDFs, plain text or Word documents, up to 50 MB each. A link is kept for reference only. It does not replace entering the values, which are what alerts and charts use.

Attach files while entering results, or later from View Details, until the test is cancelled. Files attached while entering results are saved with them: if one cannot be saved, nothing is, and the form tells you why. Anyone who can see a test can open and download all of its attachments, whoever added them. Removing an attachment hides it from the test, but it is kept as part of the patient’s clinical record. You can remove only attachments added by your own organization, so Remove appears only on those. Files the patient added, or another organization added, cannot be removed.

Lab reports

Once a test is Fulfilled, Lab Report in its details generates a PDF of it, on the Enterprise plan. The details also list every report generated for the test; you can download the ones you generated. Reports are available only for tests your organization ordered or recorded, so Lab Report and the report list do not appear on tests a patient reported themselves. See Documents.

Results patients report themselves

Patients can record results from outside laboratories in their own app, along with a photo of the report. These tests appear in the patient’s history marked External, with no ordering organization or staff member. You can see them only once the patient has fully accepted your organization. Your staff cannot edit their values, because the patient reported them, but can add files and links from View Details.

If your clinic ordered a test and the patient had the sample drawn elsewhere, the patient can enter the results against your order, attach a photo of the report, or both, while it is still Unfulfilled. The test moves straight to Fulfilled and is marked External. Until then they can also add files to the order without completing it.

Entering the results is the only change a patient can make to your order. They cannot edit, reschedule, cancel, complete or delete it, waive its parameters, add files to it once your clinic has collected or completed it, or see its history. Patients cannot remove files, including their own.

Alerts

Recording some results can trigger an alert for the patient, such as HbA1c, blood glucose or urine glucose. What happens next depends on the alert rules your organization has configured.

Who sees what

You need a role that allows viewing laboratory results to open this screen. Ordering, collecting, recording results, waiving, completing, cancelling and managing attachments all need a role that allows managing laboratories. Colleagues without it see the same list with only View Details in each row’s menu.

A collected sample stays with the location it was collected at. You can collect a sample only at a location you are assigned to, and once it is collected, only staff assigned to that location can record results, waive, complete or cancel it. Everyone with the viewing permission can still see it.

Which tests anyone can see is also bounded by your organization’s relationship with each patient. Tests for patients who have not accepted your organization, or who fall outside a tag restriction on your account, never appear.

It is bounded by which patients your role lets you see, too. If your role lets you see only the patients you follow, the list holds only their tests, not every patient’s in your organization. A patient who has asked you to follow them counts only once the request is accepted.