In the majority of U.S. healthcare institutions, patient wristbands do not contain barcodes, creating a situation where patient data is manually typed into a database or point-of-care device, leaving plenty of room for error.  In light of error statistics issued by the United Kingdom’s National Patient Safety Agency...

Ever since the landmark document “To err is human” [1] was released, patient safety has been the paramount objective in US hospitals. “Patient safety” became the catch phrase and focus for all activities; a trend that was rapidly taken up by the rest of the world’s hospitals. Suddenly a new catch phrase – “lean” – ...

Laboratorians need to take ownership of errors, identifying, analyzing and reducing them, thereby increasing patient safety. A Client Services Department, customer care representatives, a service improvement coordinator, “morning report”, electronic error tracking and reporting mechanisms, point-of-care support...

Lately, everybody seems to be talking about reducing testing errors and improving patient safety. But where do you begin? The answer may be to look beyond the error itself and instead focus on what is causing it. Michael Astion, Associate Professor, Director of the University of Washington’s Reference Laboratory...

Simple data-mining algorithms can be applied to point-of-care testing (POCT) data to document compliance of quality control, operator training and to identify potential preanalytical errors. Data can be manipulated to automate manual review and other laborious processes for identifying data trends, verifying...

What does it take to ensure an effective competency program? Acutecaretesting.org asked three point-of-care coordinators (POCC) with solid programs what makes their competencies work. Their input resulted in a list of 12 key recommendations.

The significance of good practice during the pretesting phase of clinical laboratory investigation cannot be overemphasized. The production of high-quality, accurate results, which are clinically useful, depends as much on practice before the patient’s sample reaches the laboratory as it does on the analytical phase...

The introduction of armband barcode scanning capabilities to point-of-care glucose testing devices has been shown to greatly reduce patient identification errors. Barcodes may be scanned to identify operators, patient identification and reagents. Barcode scanning, however, does not eliminate all errors, and in some...

Identification of products by barcode has been utilized by industry and business for over 30 years. The use of barcodes in the hospital setting is also well established, but in the patient environment, hospitals are still behind industry. For Point-of-Care Testing (POCT), barcodes are highly desirable. Deanna Bogner, ...

Since the mid 1990's Point of Care Testing (POCT) has been viewed as a solution to a declared need for Short Turn Around Testing (STAT).  However, is it being utilized in a way that meets the needs of improving patient care and hospital quality assurance? What is STAT testing, why and how did it become POCT? How is...