How to Upload 10 Years of Blood Tests
Have a folder of old pathology PDFs? Here is how to get them all into SmarterBlood and see every marker — ferritin, TSH, cholesterol, HbA1c — trending over time.
The Quick Answer
SmarterBlood accepts PDFs, scanned images, and smartphone photos of paper reports. Upload as many files as you like — there is no cap on history. The AI reads the test date from each report and sorts everything into a chronological timeline automatically. You do not need to prepare or rename files. Multi-page PDFs are split automatically.
Step 0 — What to Gather Before You Start
Most people have their results scattered across three or four places. Spending five minutes collecting them first makes the upload session much smoother.
Email inbox
Search for "pathology", "blood results", "4cyte", "sullivan nicolaides", "dorevitch", "laverty". Most labs email PDFs directly.
My Health Record
Download your results from myhealthrecord.gov.au. Go to Documents → Pathology Reports. Available for most results since 2016.
GP patient portal
Some GP practices use HotDoc, Automed, or similar portals that store your result history. Check any health portal logins you have.
Paper folder
Old hospital results, pre-digital reports, and paper printouts from your GP. These need photographing or scanning before upload.
Hospital discharge papers
In-patient admissions often include blood test summaries on the discharge paperwork. These are typically good quality for extraction.
Insurance medicals
Life insurance medicals and pre-employment medicals often include a comprehensive blood panel. Check any paperwork from past physicals.
Step-by-Step Upload Guide
Gather everything in one place
Look in your email (search "pathology", "blood test", "results"), your My Health Record app, and any physical folders. Most Australian pathology labs — 4Cyte, Sullivan Nicolaides, Dorevitch, Australian Clinical Labs — send results by email as PDF attachments. Save these to a single folder on your device.
Tip: Search your email for "dorevitch", "4cyte", "sullivan nicolaides" or "pathology results" to find old result emails.
Digitise any paper reports
For older tests you only have on paper: lay the sheet flat on a table in good natural light, photograph it with your smartphone camera. Make sure the entire page is visible and in focus. If you have a lot of paper reports, a flatbed scanner (or the Genius Scan / Adobe Scan app) gives better quality.
Tip: The Adobe Scan app on iOS and Android is free and produces searchable PDFs from photos — ideal for filing and uploading.
Create your free SmarterBlood account
Sign up at smarterblood.org. No subscription required. Your account is private — only you can access your data. If you already have an account, just log in.
Upload your files
On your dashboard, tap or click the Upload button. Select one or more PDF or image files. Multi-page PDFs work fine — each page with test results is extracted separately. You can upload as many files as you like; there is no arbitrary limit on history.
Tip: Processing takes 20–60 seconds per file depending on complexity. You can upload the next file while the previous one processes.
Wait for processing
SmarterBlood uses a multi-AI extraction pipeline (four independent models check each result) to accurately read marker names, values, units, and dates. You will receive an email when your results are ready. For large uploads, this can take a few minutes.
Explore your trend graphs
Once processed, your dashboard shows a timeline for every marker across all your uploaded tests. Click any marker — ferritin, TSH, HbA1c, cholesterol — to see how it has moved over the years. Reference ranges are shown in context so you can see periods of concern at a glance.
Supported File Formats and Quality Guide
| Format | Common Sources | Extraction Quality | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digital PDF (email attachment) | 4Cyte, Dorevitch, Sullivan Nicolaides, Laverty | Excellent | Clean text-based PDFs yield the highest extraction accuracy. |
| My Health Record PDF download | Downloaded from myhealthrecord.gov.au | Excellent | Standardised format. Multi-page documents with multiple test dates work well. |
| Scanned paper report (flatbed) | Old hospital results, pre-2010 reports | Very good | Flat scanning at 300 DPI or above gives clean images. Avoid scanning at an angle. |
| Smartphone photo of paper | GP summary sheet, hand-annotated results | Good | Use natural light, lay flat, photograph straight-on. Good lighting is the key variable. |
| Image-based PDF (scanned PDF) | Hospital discharge summaries with embedded scans | Good | Processed via OCR. Accuracy is slightly lower than text-based PDFs but typically high. |
| Faxed reports (low quality) | Old fax printouts from specialists | Variable | Our rotation-retry system handles many faxed documents. Very degraded faxes may miss some values. |
What SmarterBlood Does with Your History
Once your files are uploaded, SmarterBlood does the work that used to require a spreadsheet and hours of manual data entry.
Date sorting
Every result is sorted chronologically. Your trend graph starts from your oldest uploaded test and runs to your most recent.
Unit normalisation
Cholesterol in mmol/L and mg/dL, ferritin in mcg/L and pmol/L, glucose in mmol/L and mg/dL — all converted to a single consistent unit for clean trending.
Marker deduplication
Lab names vary: "FERRITIN", "Ferritin", "Serum Ferritin", "Fe STORES" all refer to the same marker. Our 1,038-alias database maps them all to a single timeline.
Reference range context
Australian reference ranges are shown on each trend graph. Periods when a marker was outside the normal range are visually flagged, so you can see at a glance when things changed.
Per-marker trend insights
For each marker, a brief interpretation note explains what a rising or falling trend typically means in clinical context.
Exportable PDF report
Generate a formatted PDF summary of your full history to share with specialists, new GPs, or to keep as a personal health record.
Tips for a Smooth Upload Session
Oldest first vs newest first
Order of upload does not matter. SmarterBlood reads the test date from each report and builds your timeline in chronological order regardless of upload sequence.
Name your files clearly
File names are not used for extraction but help you keep organised. A name like "2019-march-4cyte-fbc.pdf" is easier to manage than "scan0047.pdf" when you are uploading many files.
Multi-page PDFs with multiple dates
A single PDF containing twelve months of results will be split and each date processed separately. You do not need to split PDFs before uploading.
Different labs use different units
SmarterBlood normalises units automatically. A ferritin result in one lab reported as 45 mcg/L and another as 45 pmol/L will be detected and converted to a common unit for trending.
Duplicate detection is automatic
If you accidentally upload the same file twice, the duplicate detection system (SHA256 + perceptual hash) recognises this and skips reprocessing. No double entries appear in your dashboard.
Poor-quality faxes and old reports
Our AI tries up to six extraction strategies on degraded documents, including physically rotating the image and using a different AI provider. Most faxed documents are readable, though very old thermofax prints may miss some values.
Troubleshooting Common Issues
My uploaded file shows "0 markers extracted"
This usually means the file is a document type other than a blood test (referral letter, imaging report, hospital discharge) or the image quality is too poor. Try re-scanning at higher resolution or photographing in better light.
The date on a result is wrong
Some older pathology formats put dates in unusual positions on the page. If the AI mis-reads the date, the marker will appear at an incorrect point on the timeline. Contact support with the affected file and we can investigate.
A marker name is duplicated (e.g., "Ferritin" and "FERRITIN" both appear)
Our normalisation system handles the most common lab name variations, but some edge cases exist. We are continuously expanding the alias database. Contact support if a specific marker is consistently duplicating.
Units look wrong for one lab compared to others
Some markers switched units across Australian labs over the years. SmarterBlood attempts unit normalisation automatically. If a value looks implausible (e.g., ferritin of 45,000), use the feedback button in the dashboard to flag it.
I uploaded a multi-page PDF but only some pages were processed
Pages that contain no blood test data (such as covering letters or pathologist comments) are classified as non-blood-test documents and stored separately. Only pages with actual marker results are added to your trend dashboard.
Important Caveats
Uploading results for someone else without their consent
SmarterBlood is designed for you to manage your own health data. Uploading another person's results without their knowledge is a serious privacy matter. Each family member should have their own account.
Relying on trends alone without GP review
Seeing a marker trend downward over years is useful context, but it is not a substitute for GP review. Trends in isolation do not tell you the whole story — clinical context, symptoms, and medication history all matter.
Assuming missing markers mean normal results
If a marker you expected does not appear, it may not have been tested on that date, or it may have been mis-extracted. Absence in SmarterBlood does not mean absence from the original report.
Sharing your PDF with unknown online tools
Blood test results contain sensitive personal health information. Only upload to services with a clear privacy policy. SmarterBlood stores your data encrypted and does not share it.
Related Reading
Ready to Upload Your History?
Upload all your old blood test PDFs and see a decade of health data as clear trend graphs. Free, private, and takes about 15 minutes to set up.
This page provides general guidance on uploading blood test files to SmarterBlood. It is not medical advice. Trend data should be reviewed with your GP, who has the clinical context to interpret changes in the context of your full medical history. SmarterBlood does not diagnose or treat medical conditions.