WDRS FAQ

ELR Labs

Our fully automated Electronic Laboratory Reporting (ELR) system, WELRS/DRIVE has a planned launch date of September 2019.

  • WELRS will operate in the background to manage data security and basic health condition assignments.
  • DRIVE is a platform that creates standardized representations of incoming ELR data elements.
    • Assignments to standardized values in WDRS (i.e. the fields WDRS Test Performed, WDRS Result Coded, and WDRS Specimen Type) are made using 'keys' that incoming ELR data matches against.
    • Keys are made up of some components of the raw data from ELR messages and map to a standardized value for the WDRS field.

DOH continues to work towards a more robust mechanism for processing our laboratory data and to support the semi-automated laboratory processing in place as of March 2019. Note that the statewide ELR, PHRED, will still be available until the new WELRS/DRIVE system is launched.

FAQ for Labs

1. How will labs get into WDRS?

Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program:

  • Lab results for the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program will continue to be entered into WDRS by the WA Department of Health. There will be no changes to the lab result handling process at the LHJ level.

Tuberculosis:

  • Lab results for the disease condition Tuberculosis will continue to be a requirement for entry by LHJs with manual entry into WDRS. There will be no changes to the lab result handling process at the LHJ level until WELRS/DRIVE launch.

Hepatitis and General Communicable Diseases (GCD) the following applies:

  • PHRED labs from any given day will be imported into WDRS at 5:00pm on the following day.
    • For example, a PHRED lab received on Monday will be imported on Tuesday at 5:00pm.
    • Please continue to monitor PHRED for immediately notifiable conditions.
  • Non-PHRED GCD labs received at DOH OCDE by 3:00pm each day will be imported into WDRS that evening.
    • For GCD conditions, OCDE will only fax notifiable conditions and will be entered into WDRS that evening.
    • Hep B and C labs received at DOH OID and OCDE will continue to be faxed out to LHJs for the time being.
  • LHJs are responsible for inputting any labs received at your LHJ, this includes lab results sent from the Public Health Lab (PHL)
    • Always remember to search for the event first.
  • WA DOH PHL Results: LHJs continue to be responsible for assuring these results are entered into WDRS.
    • DOH has been working to onboard PHL lab results into WDRS.
    • As of 3/18/19, Salmonella results from the PHL are being entered into WDRS in the same timeframe as the PHRED lab results.
    • We will continue to send updates to our LHJ users as new test types from the PHL are on boarded into WDRS.
2. Will I be able to access PHRED?

PHRED will continue to be available and your access will not change. You will be able to check for immediately notifiable conditions throughout the day and review lab fields that are not imported into WDRS through DOH's work-around until DRIVE turns on.

PHRED will continue to be available and your access will not change. You will be able to check for immediately notifiable conditions throughout the day and review lab fields that are not imported into WDRS through DOH's work-around until WELRS/DRIVE turns on.

3. Will labs (PHRED and non-PHRED) imported into WDRS create new events?

In most cases a new event will be created for each lab report. However, if the person and their event(s) already exist in WDRS, the lab report will enter a deduplication queue for DOH to append the lab to the existing event.

  • Please expect deduplication to take up to several days.
4. What does 'Manual Review' on labs mean?
  • Data imported from PHRED is standardized where possible, but not all lab data has been standardized.
  • If the data could not be standardized, the text from the lab is copied directly into the free text fields of the lab in WDRS and you will see the value 'Manual Review' in the Lab tab of the event.

1. Manual Review

  • If you open the lab, you will see something like this:

  • Review the free text field(s) and update the lab values accordingly.
5. How will I know if a lab has been added in WDRS?

General Communicable Diseases

  • Any new GCD labs added to WDRS will enter the workflow 'GCD lab for review [LHJ]' until the field in the lab report, 'Lab report reviewed - LHJ' = YES (shown below). As you review these labs, please ensure that the field 'WDRS Result Summary' is correctly populated.

Workflow Queue

3. GCD lab for review WF

Lab Report Field

4. Lab report reviewed

  • If a lab creates a new event it will also enter the workflow 'GCD events that need investigator assigned [LHJ].'
  • Items can be cleared from this workflow by assigning an 'Investigator' within the wizard using the search icon and searching for the SAW username of the investigator (don't forget the wildcard function (li*)).

5. Investigator search icon

  • Note that an event may enter several workflows at once - in this case, a lab that gets uploaded and creates a new event will hit BOTH the lab for review and investigator workflows.

Hepatitis

  • Because of a high volume of repeat hepatitis labs, there is no 'Hep lab for review' workflow. When labs create new hepatitis events/cases, they will go into various workflows for review in the following categories:
    'Lab reports for review - action required'
    and
    'Potential chronic hepatitis cases - action required.'
  • When hepatitis labs append to existing cases, they will not enter new workflows unless the lab changes the case status (i.e., an acute case has become chronic).