"A physical entity that is an individual, a group, an item, or a part representative of a larger group, class or whole that is the target of an observation or analysis for the purpose of drawing conclusions about the group, class, or whole. This can be used to code a component of the specimen that the observation diagnosis relates to. Note that any physical entity in the universe has the potential to become a specimen." - HL7 V3. This model attempts to distinguish between that which is collected from the patient (or other entity), and that portion of such material that may have been further divided or modified in some way before testing. For example, (whole) blood is taken from the patient, but the object of the test may be only the plasma or redblood cells taken (spun down) from the blood. The specimen that undergoes testing may be the unaltered specimen that was collected, or may have undergone some sort of processing.