Expert systems for clinical pathology reporting.

* Conventional automated interpretative reporting systems use standard or "canned" comments for patient reports. These are result-specific and do not generally refer to the patient context. * Laboratory information systems (LIS) are limited in their application of patient-specific content of reporting. * Patient-specific interpretation requires extensive cross-referencing to other information contained in the LIS such as previous test results, other related tests, and clinical notes, both current and previous. * Expert systems have the potential to improve reporting quality by enabling patient-specific reporting in clinical laboratories.