Preanalytical quality improvement. In pursuit of harmony, on behalf of European Federation for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) Working group for Preanalytical Phase (WG-PRE) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine, 2017
It is now undeniable that laboratory testing is vital for the diagnosis, prognostication and therapeutic monitoring of human disease. Despite the many advances made for achieving a high degree of quality and safety in the analytical part of diagnostic testing, many hurdles in the total testing process remain, especially in the preanalytical phase ranging from test ordering to obtaining and managing the biological specimens. The Working Group for the Preanalytical Phase (WG-PRE) of the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) has planned many activities aimed at mitigating the vulnerability of the preanalytical phase, including the organization of three European meetings in the past 7 years. Hence, this collective article follows the previous three opinion papers that were published by the EFLM WGPRE on the same topic, and brings together the summaries of the presentations that will be given at the 4th EFLM-BD meeting "Improving quality in the pre...
Biochemia medica, 2019
Introduction: Compared to other activities of the testing process, the preanalytical phase is plagued by a lower degree of standardization, which makes it more vulnerable to errors. With the aim of providing guidelines and recommendations, the EFLM WG-PRE issued a survey across European medical laboratories, to gather information on local preanalytical practices. This is part one of two coherent articles, which covers all practices on monitoring preanalytical quality except haemolysis, icterus and lipemia (HIL). Materials and methods: An online survey, containing 39 questions dealing with a broad spectrum of preanalytical issues, was disseminated to EFLM member countries. The survey included questions on willingness of laboratories to engage in preanalytical issues. Results: Overall, 1405 valid responses were received from 37 countries. 1265 (94%) responders declared to monitor preanalytical errors. Assessment, documentation and further use of this information varied widely among re...
Preanalytical quality improvement: in quality we trust
Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, 2000
Total quality in laboratory medicine should be defined as the guarantee that each activity throughout the total testing process is correctly performed, providing valuable medical decision-making and effective patient care. In the past decades, a 10-fold reduction in the analytical error rate has been achieved thanks to improvements in both reliability and standardization of analytical techniques, reagents, and instrumentation. Notable advances in information technology, quality control and quality assurance methods have also assured a valuable contribution for reducing diagnostic errors. Nevertheless, several lines of evidence still suggest that most errors in laboratory diagnostics fall outside the analytical phase, and the pre-and postanalytical steps have been found to be much more vulnerable. This collective paper, which is the logical continuum of the former already published in this journal 2 years ago, provides additional contribution to risk management in the preanalytical phase and is a synopsis of the lectures of the 2nd European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM)-Becton Dickinson (BD) European Conference on Preanalytical Phase meeting entitled " Preanalytical quality improvement: in quality we trust " (Zagreb, Croatia, 1 -2 March 2013). The leading topics that will be discussed include quality indicators for preanalytical phase, phlebotomy practices for collection of blood gas analysis and pediatric samples, lipemia and blood collection tube interferences, preanalytical requirements of urinalysis, molecular biology hemostasis and platelet testing, as well as indications on best practices for safe blood collection. Auditing of the preanalytical phase by ISO assessors and external quality assessment for preanalytical phase are also discussed.
Preanalytical Quality in Clinical Chemistry Laboratory
Background: Haemolysis is usually caused by inadequate specimen collection or preanalytical handling and is suggested to be a suitable indicator of preanalytical quality. We investigated the prevalence of detectable haemolysis in all routine venous blood samples in OPDs and IPDs to identify differences in preanalytical quality.
Pre Analytical Phase : The Seismic Zone of Clinical Laboratory Testing
Annals of Advance Medical Sciecnes, 2018
The total testing process is divided into preanalytical, analytical and post analytical phase, with most of the errors has been suggested to occur in pre analytical phase. Pre analytical phase is the seismic zone in terms of errors as this phase has processes that are generally held outside the clinical laboratory and not under the control of the laboratory management. Therefore, active monitoring and control of all possible defects that are caused by non-laboratory personnel is essential for incorporating actions outside the laboratory in the laboratory quality assurance plan. Measures to reduce preanalytical errors include-continuous education & training, written policies, implementation of standard operating procedures, establishment of quality indicators and communication. It is the involvement of the entire health care team as a single unit that can bring improvement in total testing process and specifically pre analytical phase.
Annals of clinical biochemistry, 2016
Patient safety is a leading challenge in healthcare and from the laboratory perspective it is now well established that preanalytical errors are the major contributor to the overall rate of diagnostic and therapeutic errors. To address this, the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine Working Group for Preanalytical Phase (EFLM WG-PRE) was established to lead in standardization and harmonization of preanalytical policies and practices at a European level. One of the key activities of the WG-PRE is the organization of the biennial EFLM-BD conference on the preanalytical phase to provide a forum for National Societies (NS) to discuss their issues. Since 2012, a year after the first Preanalytical phase conference, there has been a rapid growth in the number of NS with a working group engaged in preanalytical phase activities and there are now at least 19 countries that have one. As a result of discussions with NS at the third conference held in March 2015 five...
Preanalytical quality improvement – an interdisciplinary journey
Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM), 2022
Since the beginning of laboratory medicine, the main focus was to provide high quality analytics. Over time the importance of the extra-analytical phases and their contribution to the overall quality became evident. However, as the initial preanalytical processes take place outside of the laboratory and mostly without its supervision, all professions participating in these process steps, from test selection to sample collection and transport, need to engage accordingly. Focusing solely on intra-laboratory processes will not be sufficient to achieve the best possible preanalytical quality. The Working Group for the Preanalytical Phase (WG-PRE) of the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) has provided several recommendations, opinion papers and scientific evidence over the past years, aiming to standardize the preanalytical phase across Europe. One of its strategies to reach this goal are educational efforts. As such, the WG-PRE has organized five co...
Preanalytical quality improvement: from dream to reality
Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, 2000
Laboratory diagnostics (i.e., the total testing process) develops conventionally through a virtual loop, originally referred to as ''the brain to brain cycle'' by George Lundberg. Throughout this complex cycle, there is an inherent possibility that a mistake might occur. According to reliable data, preanalytical errors still account for nearly 60%-70% of all problems occurring in laboratory diagnostics, most of them attributable to mishandling procedures during collection, handling, preparing or storing the specimens. Although most of these would be ''intercepted'' before inappropriate reactions are taken, in nearly one fifth of the cases they can produce inappropriate investigations and unjustifiable increase in costs, while generating inappropriate clinical decisions and causing some unfortunate circumstances. Several steps have already been undertaken to increase awareness and establish a governance of this frequently overlooked aspect of the total testing process. Standardization and monitoring preanalytical variables is of foremost importance and is associated with the most efficient and well-organized laboratories, resulting in reduced operational costs and increased revenues. As such, this article is aimed at providing readers with significant updates on the total quality management of the preanalytical phase to endeavour further improvement for patient safety throughout this phase of the total testing process.
Pre-analytical errors in the clinical laboratory and how to minimize them
Since evidence based medicine (EBM) is now become the main principle guiding clinical practice and is being followed universally the role of laboratory medicine in EBM needs not to be over-emphasized. So it is the need of the hour to ensure that the best evidence on testing is made available through the help of the laboratory to the clinician. This would result in making the best decision based on test results which would lead to increased probability of improved health outcomes. So it is necessary for the laboratory to maintain the strictest quality possible. Here we would see the steps of pre-analytical phase and the various points at which error can arise and how to mitigate them. The present study was carried out in our hospital central laboratory and data were collected and analyzed. Pre-analytical phase is most important in testing process and involves variables that are not under the control of the laboratory. So much care needs to be taken to deeply scrutinize this step of analysis and keep a tab on errors arising in it.