Patients’ Laboratory Test Data Will Be Uploaded to the eHealth System

The Ministry of Health reported that a new laboratory test data subsystem has been created in the eHealth information system. This means that patient test data will be managed centrally; all clinical laboratories will submit test results to the subsystem in an international structured format. The eHealth specialist and patient portals have been adapted to work with the new subsystem. Therefore, the data from the laboratory tests will be available to both citizens logged in to their account on the eHealth portal and to doctors on the Specialist Portal.

“This is a very important tool for health professionals, which has long been lacking in these days of digitisation. The patient will no longer need to print out paper test results, especially when they are carried out in a different healthcare facility than the one where the patient is registered. Now a specialist will just need to log in to the eHealth portal and see all the patient’s test data,” said Daniel Naumovas, Deputy Minister of Health.

According to Martynas Bieliauskas, Director of the Lithuanian Medical Library, the project harmonises clinical laboratory test data in the eHealth information system by creating a unified standard for laboratory data exchange. 

“Laboratories will submit test results to the eHealth system in a structured format, using the new nomenclature for clinical laboratory tests and other relevant classifications. This will then allow the comparison of the data from certain tests or demonstrate their dynamics graphically. It will also be possible to use data from laboratory tests for analysis and research. In future, this will facilitate the exchange of clinical laboratory tests among EU countries as well,” added Bieliauskas, listing advantages of the new subsystem.

The new subsystem was actively tested by specialists from Karoliniškės Polyclinic, Vilnius University Hospital Santaros Klinikos and Vilnius City Clinical Hospital. More and more healthcare institutions will gradually join the innovation. Only then, it will be possible to see laboratory test results in the ELAB subsystem of the eHealth portal. 

“The subsystem will greatly facilitate the work of doctors, as specialists will be able to see a patient’s laboratory test results in the eHealth system, regardless of the institution where the tests were performed, and facilitate communication between healthcare institutions, laboratories and other healthcare professionals. Patients are now able to see the results of laboratory tests on the eHealth portal, which was previously very limited,” said Gintarė Sragauskienė, Head of the Clinical Laboratory at Karoliniškės Polyclinic.

The project ‘Establishment of an electronic service for healthcare professionals for describing laboratory test results and orders using international nomenclatures, forming electronic health records’ was implemented by the Centre of Registers, the Lithuanian Medical Library and the Ministry of Health.