Pharmacy & lab
Critical Value
A laboratory result so far outside the expected range that it needs telling to the clinician immediately, not just reporting.
- Category
- Pharmacy & lab
A critical value — sometimes a panic value — is a result at a level that may represent immediate danger to the patient. It is a narrower concept than simply abnormal: most abnormal results are handled in the ordinary course of reporting, while a critical value triggers active communication to the treating clinician and a record that the call was made, to whom and when.
Why it matters in a hospital
The clinical risk is not that the result is wrong but that it sits unread. A potassium or a platelet count at a dangerous level printed on a report that reaches the ward hours later is a failure of process, not of analysis. That is why the communication itself is the controlled step, and why the record of who was told matters as much as the number — it is the part that is checked when something goes wrong.
How Trisvio handles it
Critical ranges exist in Trisvio's data model but are not yet administrable from the catalogue screens, and there is no automatic alerting or call-logging built on them. A laboratory relying on critical-value notification should treat that as a manual process today and ask about it specifically rather than assume it is covered.
Related
Related terms
- Reference RangeThe band of values considered normal for an analyte, which varies by age and sex — and, for newborns, by age in days rather than years.Read definition →
- Westgard RulesA set of statistical rules applied to laboratory control runs to decide whether an analytical batch should be accepted or rejected.Read definition →
- TAT (Turnaround Time)The time from a laboratory test being ordered — or the sample collected — to the verified result being available to the clinician.Read definition →
- Reflex TestingAn additional test the laboratory adds automatically when a first result meets a defined rule, without the clinician re-ordering it.Read definition →