engleski

Total quality in laboratory diagnostics. It's time to think outside the box.

Laboratory diagnostics is a fast-growing field, which provides a substantial contribution to the clinical decision making by supporting prevention, diagnosis, and therapeutic monitoring of most, if not all, human disorder. Quality and safety in diagnostic testing is however essential to furthering the goal of high-quality and safe healthcare, no other disciplines having such a prominent position in the patient safety solution than laboratory medicine. Whereas the total testing process is classically divided into three separate but sequential areas (i.e., preanalytical, analytical and postanalytical phases), a large body of evidence attests that most errors occur within the extra-analytical areas of testing, especially in the manually intensive preanalytical processes. As such, the preanalytical phase actually represents the most critical area to target for achieving major improvements in the total quality of laboratory diagnostics.

patient safety; laboratory diagnostics; preanalytical phase; errors; quality

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