Critical results communication: quality and patient safety

Leonardo De Souza Vasconcellos

doi:10.5935/1676-2444.20140034

Abstract

Item 17.8 of PALC 2013 states that “concerning the post-analytical phase, the clinical laboratory must implement a formal policy and produce documents to guide the reporting of potentially critical results, preferably to the physician or clinical staff. Criteria for potentially critical results must be established preferably in cooperation with other heads of the institution where the laboratory is housed and based on the literature”.

Highlights

Communication of critical results is an old laboratory practice, with the first reports published in the literature at the beginning of the 1970s
The Accreditation Program for Clinical Laboratories (PALC 2013) of Sociedade Brasileira de Patologia Clínica/Medicina Laboratorial (SBPC/ML) defines critical values as “results of laboratory exams that lie within a range of quantitative results or that, per se, may be related to potentially dangerous clinical situations and that must be immediately reported to the attending physician”(3)
In the PALC 2013 guidelines, this subject is developed in several chapters: Chapter 3 – Document management and control; Chapter 4 – Management of technical records and quality; Chapter 10 – Management of remote laboratory tests; Chapter – Management of the laboratory information system (SIL); and, principally, Chapter – Management of risk and patients’ safety[3]

Summary

Introduction

Communication of critical results is an old laboratory practice, with the first reports published in the literature at the beginning of the 1970s. The Accreditation Program for Clinical Laboratories (PALC 2013) of Sociedade Brasileira de Patologia Clínica/Medicina Laboratorial (SBPC/ML) defines critical values as “results of laboratory exams that lie within a range of quantitative results or that, per se, may be related to potentially dangerous clinical situations and that must be immediately reported to the attending physician”(3).

Results

Conclusion