Electronic test management systems and hospital pathology laboratory services

Pathology can be described as the branch of medicine that deals with the nature, causes, and process of disease (McGrath, 2003). Pathology laboratories consider clinical and pathologic data and integrate them within an ever-changing context and then transmit a meaningful answer back to doctors and patients. In doing so, pathology laboratories play a key role in translating data into meaningful information (Hardwick, 1998). Pathology services are information intense organisational bodies that rely heavily on the proficient administration of information for patient care purposes (Travers, 1997). It is estimated that 70% of all important decisions affecting a patient’s life involve a laboratory or pathology test, and pathology data represent an average of 70% of documents residing in electronic repositories (Becich, 2000).