[thomasfedb]

These systems likely vary around the world, this is an Australian perspective.

> When blood works or whatever exam results are available they should go through some kind of automated system that can flag critical situations like this, without waiting for a doctor.

We already have this. Based on either individual results or how results relate to each other.

Labs will detect critical results and then a range of things happen:

- a scientist may repeat or check the result if the value is extreme, to ensure it isn’t an error

- a scientist may alert a pathologist to the result immediately

- a scientist or pathologist may contact the referring doctor/hospital by phone to provide the result immediately

- in some cases, the lab will contact the patient directly (if they need to go directly to hospital for example)

This also gets done with radiology.

This then gets followed by the official report in hours to days depending on how much confirmation is required.