Errors in Laboratory Medicine (Minireview‪)‬

Measuring and improving laboratory-related patient outcomes require methods that relate the total quality of laboratory information to more effective patient management, including diagnosis, treatment of disease, clinical monitoring, and disease prevention. The improvement in analytical quality, documented through proficiency testing, should guarantee that the actual performances of clinical laboratories are suitable for improving a patient's health. Furthermore, increased attention to patients' needs is demonstrated by efforts to improve the quality of the entire service provided, e.g., reduction of the turnaround time (TAT). However, improvement of laboratory performance does not automatically indicate a reduction in the number of errors, both analytical and organizational. Even certification or accreditation processes focus attention more on the general performance of the laboratory than on events such as errors that, by their very nature, are considered exceptional. Moreover, the lack of a universally accepted definition of error and above all of "allowable error rate", reduces the possibility of evaluating the impact of laboratory error on patient outcomes. Although there is abundant scientific literature dealing with increased laboratory quality (mainly analytical), the literature on errors in laboratory medicine is scarce. One reason for this, in addition to the insufficient attention paid to the problem, is the practical difficulty in reporting and measuring the number of errors.