Reducing Laboratory Turnaround Time Outliers Can Reduce Emergency Department Patient Length of Stay

Autor:	Kenneth E. Blick, Lorne L. Holland, Linda L. Smith
Rok vydání:	2005
Předmět:	medicine.medical_specialty Patient throughput business.industry General Medicine Benchmarking Emergency department Turnaround time Patient care Laboratory test Outlier Emergency medicine medicine Core laboratory business
Zdroj:	American Journal of Clinical Pathology. 124:672-674
ISSN:	1943-7722 0002-9173
DOI:	10.1309/e9qpvq6g2fbvmj3b
Popis:	Poor core laboratory performance that causes delays in diagnosis and treatment is an impediment to optimal patient care, particularly in high-volume patient care areas such as the emergency department (ED). To evaluate the impact of laboratory performance on patient care outcomes, we obtained data from 11 hospitals related to laboratory test turnaround time (TAT) parameters and ED patient throughput. We observed that the average length of stay (LOS) in the ED correlated significantly with the percentage of total laboratory outliers (R2 = 0.75; P < .01) and to a lesser extent the TAT means (R2 = 0.66; P < .01). Furthermore, improvements in laboratory performance during the study were associated with concurrent decreases in ED LOS. Although in the past, laboratories have focused on TAT means for performance assessment, our observations suggest that a more appropriate method of benchmarking might be to aggressively set clinically driven TAT targets and assess performance as the percentage of results achieving this goal.
Databáze:	OpenAIRE
Externí odkaz:	https://explore.openaire.eu/search/publication?articleId=doi_________::ab6eac0fa6cb709bdb691319dacb48de https://doi.org/10.1309/e9qpvq6g2fbvmj3b Zobrazit plný text záznamu