Introduction
‘Specimen Type’ is the most important and specialized dropdown. Each specimen type falls under a ‘Specimen class’ e.g., Fluid, Molecular, Tissue, Cell, etc.
Define Specimen Class (v10.3 onwards)
Before v10.3, only 4 specimen class (Fluid, Molecular, Tissue and Cell) were supported. From v10.3 onwards you can add different specimen class like plants, microbes, etc. depending on your requirement.
You can now add new specimen classes from v10.3 onwards
Go to 'Dropdown Manager'. Select 'Specimen Type'
Click on 'Add'
Enter the Class name in ‘Dropdown value', leaving 'Parent Dropdown’ blank.
Add the mandatory properties: ‘quantity_unit', ‘concentration_unit’, and ’container_color_coding’:
Once new class is added, this can be used as ‘Parent Dropdown' for new specimen types.
Below are the specimen-type properties
Attribute | Property Name | Property Value | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Specimen Type | quantity_unit | Quantity units for the specific specimen type | Used to display the units on the specimen pages. Value can only be plain text. If special characters like symbols need to be used, it needs to be specified under quantity_display_unit. For e.g., μg/m3 By default, the units are set at classes level which will apply to all types under it:
|
Specimen Type | concentration_unit | Concentration unit for the specific specimen type | For example - microgram/ml |
Specimen Type | container_color_coding | The color representing the specimen class in the container location view | For example - background=red,opacity=0.5 |
Specimen Units (Dropdown)
From v11.x, you can define a list of Units which you want to use in the system. You can use the units defined in this dropdown to define specimen quantity/ concentration units for specimen class/ type on system/CP level.
Specimen Units (Define specimen class/ CP specific units)
From v11.x, OpenSpecimen supports specimen units per CP. A common issue for clients with multiple groups was to make units uniform across the collection protocols. E.g., some groups wanted to use ul vs ml as units for fluids like serum/ plasma. With this feature, users will be able to keep the units specific per specimen type within one collection protocol.
Configure specimen quantity/ concentration units using the UI
System level
Navigate to Home → Extras → Specimen Units
Add
Add all relevant values and add quantity and concentration units for any specimen class/ type for selected CP.
CP level
Navigate to Home → Collection Protocols → View CP details → Settings → Specimen units
Follow steps #2 and #3 similar to system level