A dozen first steps to national quality measures for labs
CAP TODAY June 2005
Feature Story

Karen Lusky

Dr. Meier, who is division head of system laboratories for the Henry Ford Health
System in Detroit, analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of the 12 initial
quality indicators and discussed some of the directions in which a quality
reporting initiative might take labs and the health care system.

The candidate quality indicators are as follows:

Diabetes monitoring (system)
Hyperlipidemia screening (system)
Test order accuracy (preanalytic)
Patient identification (preanalytic)
Blood culture contamination (preanalytic)
Adequacy of specimen information (system/preanalytic)
Accuracy of point-of-care testing (analytic)
Cervical cytology/biopsy correlation (analytic)
Critical value reporting (post analytic)
Turnaround time (postanalytic)
Clinician satisfaction (system/postanalytic)
Clinician followup (system/postanalytic)

The list includes a number of process quality indicators that testify to the
accuracy and efficiency of laboratory testing, Dr. Meier said. "These include
doing the right test, identifying patients and specimens correctly, reporting
critical values, and getting test results back rapidly."



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