ABRET LAB-EEG recordkeeping: what a lab's study log has to show
What the laboratory study log looks like under ABRET's LAB-EEG standards: study numbering, technologist attribution, retrievable records, and the difference between a log that is typed and a log that is derived.
The study log is the lab's spine
ABRET's LAB-EEG accreditation standards address laboratory recordkeeping (see Standard 5 in the current published edition, including its study-log items). Stripped to practice, the expectations are familiar to anyone who has run a lab: every study is identifiable by a number, the log shows who performed the work, and a surveyor can pick a study and follow it from order to record.
The failure mode is not missing data; it is unattributable data. A log where the technologist column is blank on a third of rows, or where the study number sequence has unexplained collisions, invites exactly the follow-up questions a survey visit does not need.
Study numbering that cannot collide
A hand-maintained number sequence eventually produces a duplicate or a gap nobody can explain. A system-assigned sequence with a stated format and a stated reset policy (yearly, monthly, or never) produces a log that reads like a paper log kept perfectly: deleted records leave gaps like a voided line, and numbering continues without collisions.
Attribution: the assigned tech is not the performing tech
Two different facts get conflated in most logs: who a study was assigned to, and who actually performed the hookup, the disconnect, the daily checks. Assignment is workflow ownership; performance is evidence. A defensible log records both and never substitutes one for the other, because a reviewer who asks the technologist about a study they were merely assigned to finds the conflation immediately.
Retrievability has a policy behind it
Can the lab produce the original order for a study from last spring? The honest answer names the retention policy: originals retained until the facility's configured window purges settled records, with the structured intake history retained beyond it. A lab that claims everything is retrievable indefinitely, and then cannot produce a purged fax, has damaged its credibility over a question it could have answered well.
Where this comes from in Axiom OrderFlow
The Evidence Pack's record-keeping exhibit reports study-number coverage from the auto-numbering configuration, technologist attribution from both the assignment and the structured performing-tech fields (stated separately, never conflated), and the retention posture with counts of retained versus purged originals. Every study links to its source order document while retention policy permits.