[Help a nursing student] What are those little stick-diagrams used to annotate labs?

Specialties MICU

Published

Hi there,

I'm currently precepting in my senior semester at a large teaching hospital and since we don't have electronic charting yet I'm learning to read those funky but useful stick diagrams that are used to organize lab results. I've come across the "Y" shaped one for the Chem 7 panel and the other one for the CBC.

Does anyone know what they're called? More importantly, do any of you know where I can get more info on them on the internet or elsewhere? That is, learning what they denote and using them properly.

Your help is SUPER appreciated!

1 Votes
Specializes in Psychiatry, Case Management, also OR/OB.

Hope this helps: your hemogram is angled lines to the left followed by straight line across and angles lines to the right (wish I had a word program here) on the left of the diagram is your wbc on top in middle is hgb/ bottom is the hct/ to right is platelets. so say your pts. wbc are 28,000, hgb is 7.20, hct is 29.0, and platelets are 64,000 it would look like this:

\__7.2____/64 good as i can do sorry

/ 29.0 \

for your pts lytes look at that little diagram with the straight line across 2 verticals and diagonals to the right-->

first up is your Na+ below is K+ next ChL then CO2 BUN then Cr, glucose to the right

119 110 42 /

2.1 18 3.2 \ 465 hope you get the picture

some people make the hemogram above with a big X , but I like the one I gave better... just imagine there are vertical lines in the lytes diagram i gave above

have a great day

1 Votes

We had a thread on this subject on Allnurses a few months back. Some people refer to them as lattice diagrams. That might help your search for more info.

1 Votes
Specializes in Dialysis.

Calculation screenshot.. c767d9a6.jpg

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