Labtestsonline.de - the search system for medical laboratory diagnostics

Laboratory diagnostics contribute to the final diagnosis in more than 70% of human diseases. Still, often the information potential of laboratory tests is not fully utilised by clinicians. Concurrently, patients are increasingly demanded to perform laboratory tests in the course of self-controlled therapies. To provide the compact and actual knowledge on laboratory tests, which is required to optimally use laboratory analyses, labtestsonline was developed as an information portal for laboratory tests and their applications in medicine. For the Germanspeaking region, www.labtestsonline.de was issued under the professional responsibility of the German United Society of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (DGKL). The online retrieval system for medical laboratory tests has been freely available since April 2007 and provides practice-oriented and scientifically sound information in comprehensible editing. The information portal is aimed at employees in healthcare, interested citizens, patients and in the specialised parts at medical doctors. Labtests online.de is part of a European initiative which currently has six partners, providing identically structured online retrieval portals for laboratory tests in the national languages. Labtestsonline intends to improve the application of laboratory tests and to contribute to a better appreciation of the role of laboratory medicine for the health of the population.