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 specimens, the specimen will already automatically be added to the patient record, because it has been added to itBioPath, and all that remains is to link the medical event to that existing specimen. Instructions for performing that task can be found in the following topic: Linking a Medical Event to an Existing Specimen in the Patient Record. The functionality for linking to a specimen in itBioPath remains accessible in CCR to deal with the rare case where a transplant is involved.

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.

The following process will manually add a specimen to a medical event record and to the corresponding patient record that is linked to a specimen's record in itBioPath. For instructions on how to manually add a specimen to a medical event without linking it to itBioPath, see Adding a Specimen to a Medical Event.

To add a specimen to a medical event record and link it to the appropriate specimen record in itBioPath:

1. Open the Medical Event Detail window for the medical event in question. See Viewing/Editing a Medical Event for instructions on how to do this.

2. Select the Details tab on that window.

3. Click on the + button above the Specimens grid on that tab. The Add/Link Specimen window will open. Show me the Add/Link Specimen window. See The Add/Link Specimen Window for a description of this window.

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 Medical Event Detail window and in the Specimens grid on the Labs tab of the corresponding patient detail window.

Contact Us

Research Informatics Director
Andrew Post, MD, PhD
Andrew.Post@hci.utah.edu
801-585-0600

Research Informatics Associate Director
Shirleen Hewitt, DBA
Shirleen.Hewitt@hci.utah.edu
801-585-5972

Governance

HCI Senior Director Oversight
Aik Choon Tan, PhD

Faculty Advisory Committee Chair
Aik Choon Tan, PhD

Faculty Advisory Committee Members
HCI Research Executive Committee