A clinical database as a component of a diagnostic hematology workstation

A clinical database was designed as part of a comprehensive workstation for diagnostic laboratory hematology. The database stores coded findings pertinent to hematologic disorders including inherited abnormalities, previous surgery, malignancies, current therapy, and laboratory test results. The workstation includes knowledge-based systems for peripheral blood analysis, flow cytometry studies, and bone marrow morphology. The peripheral blood system renders an interpretive report based on data from a complete blood count with manual review of a blood smear by a technologist. The flow cytometry module interprets the immunophenotyping and DNA content results, and correlates them with the clinical findings and the peripheral blood data. The bone marrow system bases its report on all of the available information including the morphologic review of the bone marrow specimen by a physician, the peripheral blood data, immunophenotype, and clinical/laboratory findings. Before generating an interpretive report, each of the knowledge-based systems automatically searches the clinical database for specific information pertinent to the findings in the case. Since the workstation must function in situations where access to distributed databases is not feasible or not yet practical, a data entry module with a graphical user interface has been created.