'Who's Covering This Patient?' Developing a First-Contact Provider (FCP) Designation in an Electronic Health Record.

Background: Safe and efficient inpatient care depends on accurate identification of the licensed independent practitioner (LIP) primarily responsible for each admitted patient. The inability to do so has far-reaching consequences, including poor communication among care teams, delays in patient care (including critical result reporting), and significant threats to patient safety.

Methods: At the University of Chicago Medical Center, an 800-bed academic hospital, a new Epic feature, called First-Contact Provider (FCP), was developed to identify the responsible LIP for each inpatient.

Effect of blood collection tubes on the incidence of artifactual hyperkalemia on patient samples from an outreach clinic.

Background: An offsite satellite clinic of the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) requested an investigation by the Clinical Chemistry Laboratory (CCL) into several cases of possible falsely elevated potassium (K⁺) values in their patients. Bloods for K⁺ and chemistry profiles are routinely collected in mint-green, heparinized plasma separator tubes (PST), centrifuged, and transported by courier from satellite clinic to CCL within several hours. Samples from on-site phlebotomy areas are similarly collected but sent uncentrifuged to CCL via a pneumatic tube system within minutes of collection.