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Patient identification errors: The detective in the laboratory
- Source :
- Clinical Biochemistry. 46:1767-1769
- Publication Year :
- 2013
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2013.
-
Abstract
- Background The eradication of errors regarding patients' identification is one of the main goals for safety improvement. As clinical laboratory intervenes in 70% of clinical decisions, laboratory safety is crucial in patient safety. We studied the number of Laboratory Information System (LIS) demographic data errors registered in our laboratory during one year. Methods The laboratory attends a variety of inpatients and outpatients. The demographic data of outpatients is registered in the LIS, when they present to the laboratory front desk. The requests from the primary care centers (PCC) are made electronically by the general practitioner. A manual step is always done at the PCC to conciliate the patient identification number in the electronic request with the one in the LIS. Manual registration is done through hospital information system demographic data capture when patient's medical record number is registered in LIS. Laboratory report is always sent out electronically to the patient's electronic medical record. Daily, every demographic data in LIS is manually compared to the request form to detect potential errors. Results Fewer errors were committed when electronic order was used. There was great error variability between PCC when using the electronic order. Conclusions LIS demographic data manual registration errors depended on patient origin and test requesting method. Even when using the electronic approach, errors were detected. There was a great variability between PCC even when using this electronic modality; this suggests that the number of errors is still dependent on the personnel in charge of the technology.
- Subjects :
- Hospital information system
Patient Identification Systems
business.industry
Medical record
Clinical Biochemistry
General Medicine
Clinical Laboratory Services
medicine.disease
Test (assessment)
Identification (information)
Patient safety
Spain
Information system
Humans
Medicine
Laboratory safety
Medical emergency
Diagnostic Errors
business
Desk
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00099120
- Volume :
- 46
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Clinical Biochemistry
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....311c90419f9e63044c794b3dda500c17
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinbiochem.2013.08.005