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Journal of clinical pathology
May, 2005;58 (5): 457-62.

Unnecessary repeat requesting of tests: an audit in a government hospital immunology laboratory.

J Kwok, B Jones
Author Information
  1. J Kwok: Clinical Immunology Division, Department of Pathology, Queen Mary Hospital, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. kwoksy@ha.org.hk
PMID: 15858114 DOI: 10.1136/jcp.2004.021691

Abstract

Unnecessary repeat requesting of tests can make up a large proportion of a laboratory's workload. This audit set out to establish the size of this problem and to identify the circumstances under which these repeat requests were made in a government tertiary hospital immunology laboratory. The numbers of tests for immunoglobulin measurement, common autoantibodies, and tumour markers that were repeated over a 12 month period were analysed by interrogating the Delphic laboratory computer system using a management information system for raw data enquiry protocol. Repeat requests within 12 weeks of a previous request made up 16.78% of the total workload. The total cost of the tests was estimated at 132 151 US dollars. The waste of technician time and reagents as a result of unnecessary repeat testing is excessive. Many of these tests might be eliminated with the use of interventions such as computerised reminders.

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MeSH Term

Autoantibodies
Biomarkers, Tumor
Costs and Cost Analysis
Diagnostic Tests, Routine
Humans
Immunoglobulins
Laboratories, Hospital
Medical Audit
Unnecessary Procedures

Chemicals

Autoantibodies
Biomarkers, Tumor
Immunoglobulins
Journal Article
Article has an altmetric score of 1

Word Cloud

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