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Context.-Accurate specimen identification is critical for quality patient care. Improperly identified specimens can result in delayed diagnosis, additional laboratory testing, treatment of the wrong patient for the wrong disease, and severe transfusion reactions. Specimen identification errors have been reported to occur at rates of 0.1% to 5%.
Objective.-To determine the frequency of labeling errors in a multi-institutional survey.
Design.-Labeling errors were categorized as: (1) mislabeled, (2) unlabeled, (3) partially labeled, (4) incompletely labeled, and (5) illegible label. Blood specimens for routine or stat chemistry, hematology, and coagulation testing were included. Labeling error rates were calculated for each participant and tested for associations with institutional demographic and practice variable information.
Results.-More than 3.3 million specimen labels were reviewed by 147 laboratories. Labeling errors were identified at a rate of 0.92 per 1000 labels. Two variables were statistically associated with lower labeling error rates: (1) laboratories with current, ongoing quality monitors for specimen identification (P = .008) and (2) institutions with 24/7 phlebotomy services for inpatients (P = .02). Most institutions had written policies for specimen labeling at the bedside or in outpatient phlebotomy areas (96% and 98%, respectively). Allowance of relabeling of blood specimens by primary collecting personnel was reported by 42% of institutions.
Conclusions.-Laboratories actively engaged in ongoing specimen labeling quality monitors had fewer specimen labeling errors. Also, 24/7 phlebotomy services were associated with lower specimen error rates. Establishing quality metrics for specimen labeling and deploying 24/7 phlebotomy operations may contribute to improving the accuracy of specimen labeling for the clinical laboratory.
(Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2008;132:1617-1622)
In early surveys, laboratory errors were classified in several ways, including cause, phase of testing, responsible party, and impact on the patient.1 Data from these studies and other sources have shaped our thinking and caused a shift in the approach to laboratory errors. We have now come to recognize that most errors occur outside of the analytic phase and are often beyond the immediate control of the laboratory.2,3
Patient identification and specimen handling are errorprone steps that occur primarily outside the laboratory. In a recent survey of error types associated with invasive procedures, 10 of 17 were related to patient identification failure.4 The College of American Pathologists has surveyed wristband identification errors in a Q-Tracks format and...