Specimen Use Case for Isolate Representation

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Use Case Summary

Public Health Labs often receive isolates submitted for reference testing. The specimen type for that ordered test is the isolate, but information about where the isolate was grown form is important to know, so it also needs to be conveyed.

A related use case is the testing of nucleic acid extracted from a sample, either submitted that way, or processed at the lab.

There are several attributes about that original specimen:

• its type (at minimum)
• its source site
• its collection method (if important)
• additives / transport media

Storyboard

Patient John Q. Doe - with respective demographic made up - is seen by Dr. Mark A. Jones for severe diarrhea, who collects a stool sample and send that to his usual testing laboratory, where Robert Gray is the lab director. The lab discovers Salmonella and sends the isolate on the state PHL, where it is identified as Salmonella enterica subspecies enterica, but the further subtyping will need to be done at CDC, so the isolate is forwarded to CDC National Salmonella Reference Lab for identification and subtyping.