Clinically Oriented Documentation of Laboratory Data

This book is a compilation of a symposium held at the State University of New York at Buffalo on the acquisition, reporting, and interpretation of clinical laboratory data. The participants and authors are leaders in the field of automation and computation, and each outlines the approach used in his laboratory. Sections are devoted to clinical chemistry, hematology, and clinical microbiology. The general theme of the book involves data collection, transmission, and, to some extent, data interpretation. The first section of the book deals with various statistical and epidemiological approaches to laboratory data in the hope of defining the "normal" range for a given test parameter. Data is broken down and analyzed according to age, sex, and geography. The problems encountered in establishing normal values are extensively discussed. The second part of the book outlines various systems of automation and computation and describes the various data acquisition and processing systems used in this country. It provides a bird's eye view of the current status of computerization in clinical laboratories. The final section deals with the problems of standardization of laboratory data. One area of laboratory medicine which is not dealt with in sufficient depth is the problem of the true answer for a particular constituent being measured, i.e., the best analytical method. This by itself, perhaps, should be the topic of a symposium.