Pharmacy & lab
Reference Range
The band of values considered normal for an analyte, which varies by age and sex — and, for newborns, by age in days rather than years.
- Category
- Pharmacy & lab
A reference range is the interval of results expected in a healthy population for a given analyte, against which a measured value is flagged as low, normal or high. Ranges are not universal: they differ by sex, by age, by method and by laboratory. For neonates they change over days — a haemoglobin or bilirubin normal at birth is abnormal a week later — which is why age granularity in the range table is not a technical nicety.
Why it matters in a hospital
The flag beside a number is what a busy clinician reads first, and an incorrect range makes that flag actively misleading rather than merely absent. A system that stores ranges in years cannot express a nought-to-seven-day band at all, so it silently applies an adult range to a newborn — and in paediatrics and obstetrics, which is where the smallest patients are, that is precisely the population it gets wrong. A non-numeric result deserves the same care: a value that cannot be compared should read as indeterminate, never be quietly treated as normal.
How Trisvio handles it
Trisvio stores reference bands in DAYS, so a neonatal band is expressible and is preferred over the unbounded adult row when both could apply. Ranges are edited by the hospital in the diagnostics catalogue rather than being fixed in code, and a result that cannot be compared numerically is marked indeterminate rather than defaulted to normal.
Related
Related terms
- Accession NumberThe unique identifier given to a specimen when the laboratory receives it, distinct from the patient number and the order number.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 →
- Vital SignsBasic clinical measurements — temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and SpO₂ — of body function.Read definition →
- LIS (Laboratory Information System)The system that runs a laboratory's work — ordering, specimen tracking, result entry, verification, reporting and quality control.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 →
- Critical ValueA laboratory result so far outside the expected range that it needs telling to the clinician immediately, not just reporting.Read definition →
- Point-of-Care TestingTesting done beside the patient rather than in the laboratory — glucometers, rapid kits, bedside analysers.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 →