HL7 v2 OBR-25 Field Guide: Result Status Values and Common Mistakes
OBR-25 tells a receiving system whether the order as a whole is preliminary or final — but individual OBX segments underneath it carry their own status too, and the two don't always agree. Chart displays that only check one of the two can show a whole panel as final when part of it is still pending.
OBR-25 is the twenty-fifth field of the HL7 v2 OBR segment — the Result Status, a coded value indicating the overall status of results attached to this order, such as preliminary, final, or corrected.
Valid code values
Example
OBR-25 carries F, marking this order as finalized. Synthetic order — not a real patient.
Where this trips people up
A panel with several component tests can have OBR-25 set to F for the order overall while one lagging OBX segment underneath it still carries a preliminary status at the result level, or vice versa during a correction. A results screen that reads only OBR-25 to decide whether to show a 'final' badge can end up displaying a panel as complete while one component value is still pending or has since been corrected. Status needs to be reconciled at both the order and result level before it's surfaced to a clinician.