Report Status — the work queue

Report Status is the board your lab actually works from. Every test your lab has taken in is standing somewhere on it — waiting for a tube, waiting for the analyzer, waiting for a signature, waiting to be handed over — and the board is both the picture of where everything is and the place you push it forward. Open it from the left navigation; it is the screen most labs leave up all day.

The line, end to end

Every test walks the same eight stations. The names in capitals are the chips along the top of the board; the words beside each arrow are the buttons that move a test on.

REGISTRATION      the visit is booked, tubes not yet drawn
     |  Collect Sample
     v
SAMPLE COLL       tube drawn and labelled with its barcode
     |  Accession
     v
ACCESSION         sample booked into the lab, on the bench
     |  results arrive (analyzer, or typed in)
     v
PENDING           values in, waiting on a signature
     |  Verify -> Authorize   (pathologist)
     v
AUTH              signed off, safe to print
     |  Print
     v
PRINTED           paper produced
     |  Dispatch
     v
DISPATCHED        report on its way to the counter / courier
     |  Release
     v
RELEASE           handed over, patient notified   [end of the line]

Two sidings:
  OUTSOURCED      with the partner lab; uploading their PDF releases it
  DISCARD         sample rejected before results existed, with a remark

Walking the line

1. Registration — the visit exists, nothing has been drawn

The moment you save a registration, every test on it lands here and the lab number appears on the board. Labgen has already worked out how many tubes this order needs — one per sample type — and generated a barcode for each. The barcode button on the row prints those labels; see Specimen barcodes & scanners if your lab uses pre-printed stickers instead.

Moving on: Collect Sample, once the tube is actually in your hand.

2. Sample Coll — the tube is drawn and labelled

Collection is stamped per test, to the minute. That matters on a visit whose blood was drawn at 8:10 and whose urine cup came back at 11:40 — the Collected column shows both batches with the tests each one covers, rather than pretending the whole visit was collected at the earliest hour.

Moving on: Accession, when the sample reaches the bench.

3. Accession — the sample is booked into the lab

Accessioning is the lab formally taking custody. Labgen checks that the barcodes for the sample types you are accessioning have been printed or scanned — a tube with no label cannot be matched to an analyzer result later, so it is stopped here rather than going missing downstream. The check is scoped to the tubes in front of you: an undrawn urine cup does not block the blood from being accessioned.

Moving on: results. This is the one hand-off the board does not perform — the test waits here until values exist.

4. Pending — values are in, waiting on a signature

A test arrives at Pending the moment it has results, from either direction:

• From the analyzer. The bridge agent matches the tube's barcode and files the values into the right test automatically. Nobody has to move anything — the test simply appears at Pending. See Machine interfacing.
• Typed in. Click Enter Results on the row to open the Result Entry Station in place, on the board. It opens with exactly the tests that button named, with the correct reference range resolved for the patient's age and gender, and flags every value high or low as you type.

5. Verify and authorize — the signature

Authorization is the one step that is a review, not a hand-off, so it has its own screen: the reviewer opens the full parameter table, sees the audit line of who entered and who verified, and signs. Verifying does not move the board — it is the technician's second pair of eyes. Authorizing does: the test lands back on the board at Auth.

You can do it in either place. The blue Authorize button on a row opens that visit's verification queue; if your lab has granted you the Verify on Report Status permission, a Verify/Report chip appears next to Pending and you work the whole queue without leaving the board. Otherwise the button takes you to Verification & critical values.

6, 7, 8. Print, Dispatch, Release

The last three stations track the physical report leaving the building. Print produces the paper, Dispatch hands it to the counter or the courier, and Release is the handover itself — the end of the line.

Release is the only step with a dialog of its own, because two things happen there at once: you tick which tests are going out, and you choose whether the patient is told. Report-ready SMS is sent at release, not at authorization, so a patient is never messaged about a report still sitting on a desk. If the bill has an outstanding balance, Labgen asks you to acknowledge it explicitly before releasing, and logs that you did.

Why each test now moves on its own

A lab number with four tests on it is four separate pieces of work that happen to share a bill. They finish at wildly different times, and the old whole-visit movement forced them to pretend otherwise — a click meant to dispatch the finished CBC would drag an uncollected tube along with it. Every control on the board is now scoped to specific tests.

• One button per station. A visit standing at three stations shows three buttons at once — for example Dispatch · 1, Accession · 2, Collect Sample · 1 — and each one touches only the tests it names.
• The front-most step is the loud one. The step closest to release is solid black: that is where the visit really is. Anything behind it is outlined — a loose end still in the lab.
• Partial steps name their tests. A button that will not move everything says which tests it will move, by code (Collect Sample · CBC), and the tooltip spells out the full names plus how many tests stay put.
• More than one test at a station opens a picker. Rather than assuming, Labgen asks which of the waiting tests you are actually collecting, accessioning, or printing right now. A single test moves straight through.
• Rows expand. Click the N tests cell to see one line per test — its own stage chip, its own next-step button, its own reject icon, its own partner-lab PDF.
• Nothing skips a station. Each step will only carry a test that has genuinely reached the step before it. An unauthorized result cannot be printed, dispatched, or released, however it is clicked.

Reading the board

• The chips across the top are the stations, with a live count of the tests standing at each. Click one to filter the board to it; All clears the filter.
• The Status column shows the visit's headline stage. When its tests are split across stations, a second line spells out the split — 2 Pending · 1 Accession — which is also why the same row can show up under more than one chip.
• Part Auth, Part Print and Part Disp are visit-level chips, not stations. They answer "which visits are half finished" — no single test is ever at Part Auth.
• A red-tinted row with a clock icon is past its turnaround time.
• The board opens on today. Clear the date range to search back through the full history; the search box takes a name, UHID, lab number, phone number, or test.
• The patient name and lab number are links back into the registration screen for that visit.

The two sidings

Outsourced — the test is at another lab

A test you have flagged as outsourced never joins the analyzer or result-entry queues. It goes straight to the Outsourced station and waits there for the reference lab's own PDF; uploading that PDF releases it in one step. A visit whose in-house tests are still being drawn stays on the collection stations regardless — the outsourced test does not drag the row forward. Full detail in Outsourced tests.

Discard — the sample was rejected

A haemolysed, clotted, or insufficient sample is rejected from the row's reject icon. Rejection is only possible before results exist — at Registration, Sample Coll, or Accession — and always needs a written remark, which is stamped on the test and shown in red on the Discard chip. Once values are in, a bad result is corrected through the amendment path instead, which keeps its own audit trail.

Who can move what

Each station names the roles allowed to approve it. If your role is not on the list the button still shows, greyed out, with a lock and the roles that can — so you know who to ask instead of wondering why nothing happens.

Handing over a multi-test visit

Once at least one in-house test on a visit has been released, a green Club Report button appears on the row: it combines that visit's finished reports into a single PDF, one page per test, with a tick-list so you can leave any of them out. Tests still awaiting authorization are listed by name rather than silently dropped. See Clubbed reports.

What the board records

• Every move is stamped with who approved it, which tests it covered, and when — including partial moves.
• Rejections keep their remark, so "why was this sample not run?" always has an answer.
• Balance overrides at release are logged, so a report released against an unpaid bill is traceable.
• Amendments after authorization need a reason and are recorded separately. See the Data logger.