ABSTRACT
To solve this problem, improve the safety and quality of patient care, and save patients' time and energy, the present study developed a web-based system for electronic information exchange between laboratories and offices in Microsoft Visual Studio with the ASP.net technology and the Microsoft SQL Server database. In developing countries, most primary healthcare centers do not have electronic medical records, and outpatient healthcare centers are rarely connected electronically to their reference laboratories.9'13 Even developed countries, which are pioneers in this domain, have not fully addressed the challenges related to interoperability.14"17 Paper-based communications, where patients themselves occasionally carry laboratory information, waste a great deal of time and energy commuting between outpatient centers and laboratories outside these centers.18-19 This imposes heavy delay and backlog on the transfer oftest results, and physicians cannot always have timely access to these results. If HCPs fail to follow-up test results, patients are exposed to a heightened risk of misdiagnosis or delayed treatment, and this leads to unfavorable treatment outcomes and threatens the quality of care and patient safety and satisfaction. [...]it is essential to receive and follow-up laboratory results in order to improve patient safety and the quality of care.20-21 In some cases, information exchange between physicians and the laboratory (both requests for tests and retrieval of results) is performed via email, fax, special landlines, and printers;in addition to suffering from the mentioned problems, these methods are not documented or reliable.22'24 Laboratory service process errors are more important in offices because these healthcare centers are most frequently visited by patients25 and, as such, a large number of tests are requested and the process oftest is more complicated in offices.26 Accordingly, the present study aimed to overcome the problems associated with paper-based information exchange between laboratories and offices, improve outpatient safety and the quality of care, and help save time and energy by developing an electronic information exchange system27for laboratories and offices,28 especially in the COVID-19 pandemic when electronic information exchange could be effective.29-30 Method In this applied study, the processes related to information transfer between diagnostic laboratories and offices were examined, and a list of physicians' and laboratories' needs was drawn up based on a review of sources (books and articles) and surveying physicians (n=5) and laboratories (n=5). Since there were eight participants, the score of each question could range from 0 to 16.