Reports are the communication bridge between healthcare professionals and at Unilabs. As diagnostic providers, we know that its elaboration is not a trivial task. Click To Tweet
Diagnostic tests from imaging exams, clinical laboratory and pathology diagnostic services provide answers that help give the best care. These results have a significant influence on treatment decision-making. Therefore, their interpretation is key in ensuring an early diagnosis and improving people’s lives.
In many cases, the healthcare professionals who make diagnoses are different from those who attend to and communicate the results to patients.
For instance, the typical stages of workflow are a pathologist who reaches a diagnosis by analysing a tissue sample, then writes a report explaining the results. Sends the report to the clinician, whose medical decisions will be motivated by the report.
The process is similar for radiologists who read medical images or laboratory professionals who interpret the results from, for example, a blood sample.
In all this process, there is an essential tool, which perhaps from the outside may go unnoticed. Beyond the vital work of healthcare professionals and the decisions made by clinicians, the communication bridge between them is the report.
Relevance of translating test results into words
Although the results may be discussed verbally with the clinician in certain situations, in most cases, the written report will be the only tool to provide an interpretation of results, stating the conclusions and give advice to the clinician.
Hence, the information must be transmitted effectively.
Elaboration of a report starts before holding a pen or sitting in front of the keyboard. The first step involves a mental process in which the definite and essential information that must be included is visualised and decided.
Then, the next step is to translate into words everything needed to care for the patient. It is crucial to ensure that the message is useful. Consequently, the report must be clearly and unambiguously written.
Carefully written texts not only give a good impression but also help avoid mistakes. For this, some features that must be taken into account to create a high-quality report include proper grammar and spelling, logical organisation and terminological precision.
Believe it or not, it is not easy to make a doctor, when reading a report, be able to imagine what the pathologist, radiologist or technician who wrote it saw and agree with their interpretation.
In short, the exercise of translating data into words requires the ability to synthesise medical information, but also creativity and impeccable communication skills.
At Unilabs, we have key technologies, such as data dashboards for efficient operations, bi-directional software integrations or our own digital reporting platform, to optimise this process for all those involved.
However, beyond the tools that make it possible to increase efficiency in the flow of information, it’s the skill of the professional that makes it possible to transmit the results in an intelligible manner and thus achieve accurate diagnoses.
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