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Panels and reference ranges

Panels

/tests/panelswhat gets ordered together, and in what order it reports.

A panel is a named group of catalogue tests with a declared reporting order, plus one sentence saying why the panel exists, written for whoever reviews the panel list in three years.

Reordering is two buttons, deliberately — there is no drag handle, and there will not be one. A reporting order that changes because a finger slipped on a touchscreen is a report that reads differently for no recorded reason.

Reference ranges

/reference-rangesa reference range is a function, not a column.

This is the difference between a system that prints an interval beside a number and one that has already resolved it:

PrintedHaemoglobin 9.1 g/dL · Normal: 12.0–15.5. The reader does the arithmetic. Nothing states which population that interval belongs to, whether it matches this patient, or which method produced it
ResolvedHaemoglobin 9.1 g/dL Low · ref 12.0 to 15.5 · adult female · this method. The interval was selected by age, sex and method, and the flag is part of the result rather than a rendering of it

Ranges are held as bands. A band carries its own low and high, and optionally its own critical low and high — leave both critical fields empty and that band can never raise a critical flag.

:::info The intervals are yours LabFlow resolves against the ranges your laboratory has verified for its own methods and population. It does not supply clinical reference intervals. :::

A released result keeps the range it was read against

Ranges change. Editing a band changes what the next result means; it does not reach back. A released result stores the interval that applied when it was produced, exactly as an audit row stores the role that applied when it was written.

Personalised ranges

/results/personalized-rangesthe patients for whom the population range is the wrong answer.

Some patients need their own interval: the population band would flag every result they ever produce, or flag none of the ones that matter. A personalised range overrides the band for that patient and that test.

Changing an override never rewrites a result that already exists. The then-and-now comparison arrives with released results, so a reader can see both what was used and what would be used now.