The FHIR DiagnosticReport resource is a standardized data structure that represents the findings and interpretation of diagnostic tests performed on patients. In laboratory medicine, it serves as the digital equivalent of a complete lab report — grouping together individual test results, providing clinical context, and optionally including the ordering physician's interpretation. Each DiagnosticReport references one or more Observation resources that contain the actual test values.
A DiagnosticReport carries several important pieces of metadata beyond the test results themselves. It includes the report status (registered, partial, preliminary, final, amended), the category of diagnostic service (laboratory, radiology, pathology), the date and time the specimens were collected and the report was issued, and references to the patient, the ordering clinician, and the performing laboratory. This rich context ensures that recipients of the report have everything they need to act on the results safely.
The structure of a DiagnosticReport is flexible enough to accommodate different laboratory reporting practices around the world. A basic chemistry panel might produce a single DiagnosticReport with a dozen Observation resources, while a complex genetic test might include nested groups of observations with interpretive text. The resource also supports attaching the original report as a PDF or image, preserving the source document alongside the structured data.
When digitizing paper lab reports, the DiagnosticReport resource is the natural target format. The OCR and NLP pipeline extracts test results and maps them to LOINC-coded Observations, then wraps them in a DiagnosticReport that captures the report-level information — the laboratory name, report date, patient identifiers, and overall status. This DiagnosticReport can then be transmitted to an EHR, stored in a FHIR server, or included in a Bundle for batch processing.