Development of a hospital information system for cytopathology

The development of a system of ordering cytology tests and reporting cytodiagnoses as part of a hospital information system (HIS) is reported. Cytology tests are ordered by lightpen selections that carry the user along an ordering pathway that includes selection of specimen type, collection procedure information and a patient history matrix. On the patient history matrix the user is asked pertinent questions to which he or she may respond by making appropriate lightpen selections or type-ins. Test results ar communicated to HIS by the cytotechnologist through the accumulation of a series of lightpen selections with some type-in modifiers; this builds into a message containing a complete cytologic diagnosis.