Laboratory Turnaround Time

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Monitoring the turnaround time (TAT) is considered as an important benchmark for all kind of laboratory setting. It helps to reduce the cancellation of patient sample, delayed results, and providers dissatisfaction with the laboratory service. Hawkins (2007) conduct his research based on the data collected from 159 hospitals regarding the important of monitoring the TAT and the expectation of order to report TAT in a critical care laboratory. The data was collected from every hospital for a week. They track all the time of the sample that were scanned as received in the lab to the time result was reported in the hospital information system. According to National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry Laboratory Medicine Practice (2002) Critical care …show more content…

His data collection process went for 7 days and at the end of each day they pull the TAT report that provide the information about the location of patient, sample collection time, sample receiving time in the lab and the time of the result reported to each hospital system. This study divides the time into three phases. First one result within 30 minutes of collection, second with in 60 minute of TAT time and the last one greater than 60 minutes. When they pull the results from all those hospital they found that 90% of the sample complete the TAT before 60 minutes. less than 1% meet the TAT before 30 minutes and about 9 % sample include either cancelled sample or result reported after 60 minutes. This research concludes that 9% of sample that were delayed and did not meet the 60 minutes TAT protocol which directly affect the patient treatment process. They suggest that such delayed in the availability of the result and its review process should be remember when discussing the need to improve the lab TAT procedure. Similarly, various techniques such as sample login book, TAT monitoring screen and TAT reporting system were recommended to use in the critical care laboratory that will increase the future standard of care to the …show more content…

Among the 300 samples 150 samples data was collected from outdoor setting and 150 from the inpatient setting. All these sample were first screened for any pre-analytical errors and quality control were run to check the status of the instrument. These sample were processed in the order in which they were received, and report was dispatched after the complete analysis. Their result indicates that out of 300 samples 54 sample were reported after 60-minute interval. The average TAT of each sample was 52.6 minute where as some sample were reported after more than 85 minutes of the collection too. Their study also suggests that the ward where result was reported late had high number of patient and provider complain. Their treatment process and diagnosis process were delayed by average 30 minute in general. Although their study did not include the result investigation like ACCP, ANA which are reported weekly and other hormone assay in the critical care lab, but their report suggests that there are lots of technique that can be done to improve the turnaround of the laboratory. The results of the study were discussed with the management with the print out of the report and suggest that the biggest cause of prompt TAT in the hospital was because of lack of automated facilities such as sample transport facilities in the pre-analytical phase

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