Updating or cancelling previously issued laboratory reports

This page provides guidance for handling a laboratory report that has already been issued and subsequently needs to be updated or cancelled.

Updating a laboratory report

Where information in a previously issued laboratory report needs to be updated or corrected, the complete report should be reissued.

The reissued report should:

• use the same DiagnosticReport.identifier as the previously issued report
• contain a new DiagnosticReport.issued date and time
• be submitted as a new document Bundle
• contain the corrected result information

The previously issued Bundle is not updated. The reissued report is sent as a new Bundle with a new Bundle identifier.

For example:

In this example, the laboratory has corrected the CRP result from 200 mg/L to 20 mg/L.

The report identifier remains unchanged so that the receiving system can associate the reissued report with the previously issued report. The later DiagnosticReport.issued date and time identifies the more recently issued version.

Cancelling a laboratory report

Where a previously issued laboratory report or result needs to be cancelled, the report should be reissued using the same approach.

The cancellation report should:

• use the same DiagnosticReport.identifier as the previously issued report
• contain a new DiagnosticReport.issued date and time
• be submitted as a new document Bundle
• clearly communicate that the previously issued result has been cancelled

Where the previously reported result is no longer applicable, the numerical result, interpretation and reference range should not be repeated as a valid result.

The reason for the cancellation should be communicated using the appropriate textual result or comment information available within the report.

For example:

In this example, the CRP result of 200 mg/L should no longer be considered a valid result.

Receiving system behaviour

Receiving systems should be aware that more than one report may be received with the same DiagnosticReport.identifier.

Reports with the same identifier should be associated with each other and DiagnosticReport.issued should be used to determine the order in which they were issued.

Receiving systems should ensure that the most recently issued report can be identified and should not assume that reports with the same identifier represent separate laboratory reports.

Examples

The following examples demonstrate this behaviour:

• Updated laboratory report - demonstrates a previously issued CRP result being corrected from 200 mg/L to 20 mg/L.
• Cancelled laboratory report - demonstrates the previously issued CRP result being withdrawn so that it should no longer be used.