Concepts/Specimen

Definition

A specimen in Care is a biological sample that a user collects from a patient for testing. Care always creates a specimen as part of a service request. You cannot create a specimen on its own. The specimen answers a specimen requirement that the underlying activity or service definition sets on that request. Care takes the patient, the encounter, and the facility from the parent service request.

Key Attributes

Components	What it captures
Accession Identifier	The tracking number of the specimen. Care generates the number if you leave the field blank.
Status	The current state of the specimen.
Specimen Type	The kind of sample, for example blood, urine, or tissue. Care codes the type with SNOMED CT.
Collection	The collector, the collection date and time, the quantity and its unit, the collection method, the body site, and the fasting status.
Processing	The list of processing steps. Each step holds a processing method, a description, a performer, and a time.
Condition	The condition of the sample when the laboratory receives it.
Notes	Free text remarks about the specimen.

Accession Identifier

The accession identifier tracks the specimen through collection and processing. Care shows the identifier as a QR code. To find a specimen, scan the QR code or enter the accession identifier.

📝 Note

The section where you identify the specimen has the title Sample Identification. The rest of the product uses the word "Specimen".

Processing

Each processing step records what a user did to the sample. After a diagnostic report exists for the parent service request, you can no longer change the processing step of the specimen.

Status

Status	Description
Draft	Care created the specimen against a specimen requirement. The collection details are not complete. This status is specific to Care and is not part of FHIR.
Available	The collection details are complete. The sample is ready for use.
Unavailable	The sample is not available for testing.
Unsatisfactory	The sample does not meet the quality that the test needs.
Entered in Error	A user created the specimen by mistake.

A specimen starts in Draft. You fill in the collection details, and the status moves to Available. If you find a problem with the sample, you discard the specimen as Unavailable, Unsatisfactory, or Entered in Error. These three statuses are final. A discarded specimen does not return to Available.

Permissions

Permission	What it allows	Roles
Can Create Specimen on Facility	Create, update, collect, process, and discard a specimen.	Facility Admin, Admin, Doctor, Nurse
Can Read Specimen	View a specimen and the specimen history.	Facility Admin, Administrator, Admin, Staff, Doctor, Nurse, Pharmacist

Pages that link here:

Concept: Concepts/Patient
Reference: References/Specimen