Comparing Ethnicity-Specific Reference Intervals for Clinical Laboratory Tests from EHR Data.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The results of clinical laboratory tests are an essential component of medical decision-making. To guide interpretation, test results are returned with reference intervals defined by the range in which the central 95% of values occur in healthy individuals. Clinical laboratories often set their own reference intervals to accommodate variation in local population and instrumentation. For some tests, reference intervals change as a function of sex, age, and self-identified race and ethnicity.

Methods

In this work, we develop a novel approach, which leverages electronic health record data, to identify healthy individuals and tests for differences in laboratory test values between populations.

Results

We found that the distributions of >50% of laboratory tests

SUBMITTER: Rappoport N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8404742 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature