How do incorrect laboratory results affect patient care?
Any error during the laboratory testing process can affect patient care, including delay in reporting, unnecessary redraws, misdiagnosis, and improper treatment. Sometimes, these errors may even be fatal (e.g., acute hemolytic reaction after incompatible blood transfusion caused by an error in patient identification).
What are three preanalytical sources of error that need to be avoided in order to provide accurate plasma ammonia values?
Useful tips
| Make sure that: | To avoid: | Due to: |
|---|---|---|
| The mixing of the capillary sample with magnet and mixing wire/flea is not done too vigorously | cK+ | Hemolysis 3.7 |
| cK+ is measured in plasma, as serum yield results 6.2 % higher due to lysis of the platelets during clotting [7] | cK+ |
What percentage of errors happen in the preanalytical phase?
Analysis of results of this study shows that about 65.09% of errors occur in preanalytical phase, while about 23.2% and 11.68% occur across analytical and postanalytical phases, respectively.
What is preanalytical error?
Preanalytic errors are errors that occur prior to the testing process. Hemolyzed specimens, clotted specimens, incorrect tube type, and inadequate tube fill can all produce preanalytic errors.
What are the preanalytical errors?
The preanalytical errors refer to all of the inappropriate performances before the specimens are measured by analyzers, such as improper sample collection, transport delays, illegible handwriting on requisition, and so on.
Why are preanalytical considerations important?
Collection errors can lead to discrepant ABO test results. Preventing preanalytical errors is necessary to ensure accurate and safe patient testing. Patient identification systems that use barcode technology also aid in correct identification of patient and specimen collection tubes.
Which is an example of a preanalytical error?
The most commonly reported types of pre-analytical error are: a) missing sample and/or test request, b) wrong or missing identification, c) contamination from infusion route, d) haemolysed, clotted, and insufficient samples, e) inappropriate containers, f) inappropriate blood to anticoagulant ratio, and g) …
How can preanalytical errors be reduced?
“Other measures for avoiding preanalytical errors that have proven successful are: never accept an unlabelled sample. Never allow unlabelled or mislabeled samples to be relabeled, if recollection is feasible.” “Document relabeling must be approved by an attending physician, with results footnoted.
What are pre – analytical errors?
Pre-analytical Error. The pre-analytical phase of the total laboratory testing process is where the majority of laboratory errors occur. Pre-analytical errors can occur at the time of patient assessment, test order entry, request completion, patient identification, specimen collection, specimen transport, or specimen receipt in the laboratory.
What are examples of lab errors?
Lab errors occur when medical testing, images or procedures are mishandled. Examples of lab mistakes include: Images such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) are taken incorrectly. A patient’s test sample or paperwork is mixed up with that of another patient. Specimens or samples are taken incorrectly.
What is analytical errors?
Errors in analytical measurements. The error in an analytical measurement is sum total of a number of contributing errors: Measurement errors – measurement errors result from incorrect measurements due to personal perceptions, such as an error in observing your reading due to parallax error or error in noting the colour change in a titration.