MII IG Laborbefund - Local Development build (v2027.0.0-ballot) built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) Build Tools. See the Directory of published versions

Guidance for Researchers

Laboratory tests are central to most medical diagnoses. Preliminary results can matter for time-critical applications, while final results are normally used for patient care and research alike. The central document this module represents is the laboratory report produced by a medical laboratory. Because the module is broadly applicable, it does not prescribe consortium-specific scenarios.

Getting Started

If you are new to the MII Core Dataset, we recommend exploring the following resources:

1. Logical Models — Understanding Module Content

The Logical Models provide a high-level, technology-independent description of the data this module covers:

• Laboratory report — identification, status, clinical reference date, documentation date
• Specimen — identification, collection and laboratory receipt time, specimen type, body site
• Laboratory test — parameter, result and interpretation, reference range, method
• Laboratory order — identification, status, request date

They let you understand the scope and structure of the available data without knowing the FHIR details.

2. UML Diagrams — Visualizing Data Relationships

The UML Diagrams show how the elements relate to one another. They are particularly useful for:

• understanding how a report, its tests and their specimens hang together
• identifying the elements relevant to a research question

3. Examples — Seeing FHIR Data in Practice

The Examples show samples of the FHIR resources, among them a quantitative result, an excretion rate with a composed unit, a result given as a range, and a test carrying no value at all. They demonstrate:

• how laboratory data is represented in FHIR
• what a complete report looks like
• how the resources reference one another

4. Domain Guidance — What to Watch Out for in an Analysis

Three subjects decide whether laboratory data is read correctly:

• Laboratory Timestamps — laboratory data carries several timestamps that are easy to confuse: collection time, laboratory receipt time, request time, and the times at which result and report were documented. The page explains which one is the right basis for a chronological analysis.
• Interpretations and Comments — how a result is assessed and which codes are used for it.
• Specimen — what was measured from, and where comments about the specimen are kept.