Background Highlights

-Recognized that late lab reporting may delay patient management, potentially evening prolonging inpatient length of stay.

-The goal was to determine the success with which labs are able to report morning test results on time.

-Institutions enrolled in the College of American Pathologists Q-Probes program (a multi-institutional quality improvement program) participated in the study.

-Of the 367 participating institutions, 88.9% of tests (n = approx. 80,000) were reported on or before the report-by time established at each institution (which varied from 8:00 AM-10:00 AM in general).

-They didn’t find that any of the institution’s demographic features (academic or non-academic, private versus governmental, etc.) were associated with higher or lower rates of institutional reporting compliance.

-Recognized that results that are not back in time for physician rounding may lead to delays in patient management and increased length of stay.

-Had seen a number of patient safety reports filed for delayed phlebotomy collections.

-Sought to develop a model that improved quality but did not expand the total number of employees.

-The study was done at Brigham and Women’s (777-bed academic med center) for the morning lab draw.

-Analyzed current state data to determine number of lab samples per hour in order to identify busy time frames.

-Created two different staffing models based on high-volume versus low-volume days with increased staffing during peak hours.

-Analyzed data 6 months pre-implementation and 5 months post-implementation. Found the median collection time of all morning samples was 17 minutes earlier with the new staffing model. The average number of safety reports filed decreased by 80%.