Root cause analysis of laboratory turnaround times for patients in the emergency department.

Introduction: Laboratory investigations are essential to patient care and are conducted routinely in emergency departments (EDs). This study reports the turnaround times at an academic, tertiary care ED, using root cause analysis to identify potential areas of improvement. Our objectives were to compare the laboratory turnaround times with established benchmarks and identify root causes for delays.

Pneumatic tube delivery system for blood samples reduces turnaround times without affecting sample quality.

Study Objectives: In this study, blood samples from ED patients that were delivered to the laboratory by a pneumatic tube delivery system and by a human courier were compared for timeliness and quality of results.

Methods: We studied all consecutive measurements of serum hemoglobin and potassium ordered from 2 emergency departments of a multisite tertiary care hospital system, one with a pneumatic tube system and the other using human couriers. Turnaround time was measured from the time that the test was ordered by the physician to the time the result was reported on the hospital information system.