The LDS Hospital Laboratory System

Abstract

LDS Hospital and its managing corporation, IHC, have adopted a unique strategy to solve the problem of laboratory computerization. A scheme has been devised where a single laboratory computer system and sophisticated telecommunications techniques serve the needs of multiple IHC hospitals in the intermountain region. The laboratory computer communicates with HELP systems installed at each of the hospitals to provide the laboratory functions required of a hospital information system. Sections 1 to 6 of this chapter are reprinted from an article appearing in the 1988 SCAMC proceedings that detailed the architecture of the link between the laboratory system and HELP and elaborated on issues related to implementation. A system that alerts for life-threatening laboratory results is in place at LDS Hospital and is discussed in Chapter 17.

Reprinted with permission from “Proceedings of the Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care” by Huff and Pryor, SCAMC 11, 1988.