Upgrades of the itBioPath system have resulted in each specimen in the itBioPath database being linked to a patient record that has assigned to it a unique HCI Person ID alias. That same alias is used to uniquely identify patients in CCR, and is planned to be used in several of Research Informatics' other databases. Each person, as the system is designed, is to be identified by the same HCI Person ID number in each database, and that means that the ID can be used to link records associated with the same person in the different databases. What this means for biospecimens is that any specimen that is added to itBioPath will automatically show up as a Specimen in that patient's CCR record. There is no need to add the specimen in CCR at all, and there is no longer any need to link specimens in CCR to specimens in itBioPath (formerly BST). In other words, for most situations, this topic is now mostly obsolete — no longer necessary. The adding of most linked specimens is automatic. The functionality for linking a CCR specimen to a specimen in itBioPath remains active to deal with the rare case where a transplant is involved. That is the only time you will need to perform this action.

If a specimen from itBioPath does not show up automatically in CCR when it ought to, please work with Research Informatics to make certain that both the patient in CCR and the patient record associated with the specimen in itBioPath have the same HCI Person ID. There may be duplicate Person records in itBioPath or the Person record in itBioPath for the current patient may not have been assigned a different HCI Person ID than they were assigned in CCR.

In the rare case that you actually need to perform this action, if the specimen you would like to link to the patient record is also associated with a medical event in that patient record, you might be better served to add the specimen to the medical event instead of directly to the patient record, since it will automatically be added to the patient record at the same time. See Linking a Specimen from itBioPath to a Medical Event for instructions on how to do this.

The following process will add a specimen to a patient record that is linked to the corresponding itBioPath specimen record. For instructions on how to add a specimen that does not have a record in itBioPath to a patient record, see Adding a Specimen to a Patient Record.

To add a specimen to a patient record and link it to the a specimen record in BST (when there is a transplant involved):

1. Open the patient detail record for the patient in question. See Viewing/Editing a Patient Record for instructions on how to do this.

2. Select the Labs tab.

3. Click on the + button above the Specimens grid on that tab. The Add/Link Specimen window will open.

4. Select the Specimen Type in the appropriate field in the Step 1 — Enter CCR Specimen Data data box on the Add/Link Specimen window.

The Collect Date in this data group is not required if you are going to link to an itBioPath record, since this value will be automatically filled in when you establish the link. You may, however, choose to fill in this or the Alias fields to narrow down the number of resulting records that will be found as possible specimens to link to.

5. Enter appropriate search criteria in the fields in the Search for BST Specimens area of the Step 2 — Link to BST Specimens (Optional) data box to search itBioPath's records for appropriate specimens to link to. See The Add/Link Specimen Window for a description of the search criteria fields.

The patient's last name will be automatically entered in the Last Name field and the value that corresponds in itBioPath with the Specimen Type selected (see step 4 above) will be automatically entered in the BST Specimen Sub-type field. (You may edit the Last Name default search value if necessary, but not the value selected in BST Specimen Sub-type.) This criteria may be enough to perform an adequately specific search. If too many records are returned to be useful, you can perform the search again (repeating steps 5 and 6) with additional search criteria to reduce this number.

6. Click on the Search BST button. The BST Search Results: (Select to link) grid will be populated with specimen records from itBioPath that match all of the search criteria entered.

7. Click on the row of the specimen to be linked to the patient record from those returned in the grid. The row will be highlighted in yellow.

8. Click on the Link Specimen button to add/link the selected specimen to the patient record. The specimen will be added to the patient record with a link to the indicated itBioPath record. The Add/Link Specimen window will remain open, but the newly linked specimen will no longer appear in the BST Search Results grid.

9. Repeat steps 4 through 8 for any additional specimen that might need to be added to the database. (If the additional specimens already appear on the BST Search Results grid, you can simply repeat steps 7 and 8.) If necessary, you may also add some specimens that are not linked to BST records at this point as well — see Adding a Specimen to a Patient Record.

10. When you have added all of the specimens you need to, click the Cancel button to close the Add/Link Specimen window. The newly added specimens will be displayed in the Specimens grid on the patient detail window.