Posted by Sten Westgard, MS
Do you recall a few years ago there were reports that came out assessing the state of Proficiency Testing (PT) as well as a 2007 National Status Report on Laboratory Medicine? Well, that same group - The CDC Laboratory Medicine Best Practices Team - has been hard at work, and just released some new findings on Patient Specimen Identification, Critical Value Reporting, and Blood Culture Contamination.
Here's a quick summary of the recommendations from the CDC Laboratory Medicine Best Practices Team:
The following are identified as “best practice” recommendations.
"Patient Specimen Identification:
- The use of barcoding systems (vs. no barcoding) is identified as a best practice for reducing patient specimen identification errors (8 studies, log odds ratio = 2.45; 95% CI 1.6-3.3).
- The use of point-of-care-testing barcoding systems is identified as a best practice for reducing patient test result identification errors (5 studies, odds ratio 6.55; 95% CI 3.1 – 14.0).
Critical Value Reporting:
- No recommendation is made for or against identifying the use of call centers (3 studies, Standard difference of means = 0.81, 95% CI -0.52 – 2.15) or automated notification systems (3 studies, Standard difference of means = 0.51, 95% CI -0.4 – 1.4) as a best practice.
Blood Culture Contamination:
- The use of venipuncture for sample collection when this option exists in the clinical setting is identified as a best practice for reducing blood culture contamination rates (7 studies, OR = 2.63, 95% CI 1.85-3.72).
- The use of dedicated phlebotomy (teams) to collect blood culture specimens is identified as a best practice for reducing blood culture contamination rates (6 studies, OR = 2.76, 95% CI 2.2 - 3.5).
- No recommendation is made for or against identifying the use of pre-packaged preparation kits (4 studies, OR =1.1, 95% CI 0.99-1.41)3 as a best practice."
The full report can be accessed here.
The Best Practices Team is also on the hunt for new topics to tackle. If you have an idea of what Best Practices should be studied next, please visit them at http://www.futurelabmedicine.org and submit your ideas.
Really this is the best quality site
thanks alot
Posted by: EYAD AL DAQROUQ | October 05, 2010 at 12:10 PM