Frecuencia de valores críticos en un laboratorio de urgencias de un hospital del tercer nivel de atención de Tegucigalpa, Honduras

Abstract

A critical laboratory value is a result significantly outside the reference range. These values represent a critical risk to the patient's life as they may lead to modification of clinical management and therapy in more than 90% of cases 1-3. Timely identification and reporting of critical laboratory values is part of the quality requirements of the post-analytical phase and contributes to the patient's safety and proper clinical management. The objectives of this study were to identify and define the critical values of laboratory tests in the Emergency Department of the Clinical Laboratory of the Hospital Escuela de Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and to determine the frequency of essential values in the areas of blood chemistry, serum electrolytes, arterial gases and hematology. Of the total number of tests available in the Emergency Department, at least 21 corresponded to tests with critical values and were included in this study. In a 3-month interval, 343,462 laboratory results were analyzed, of which (n=9,057, 2.63%) corresponded to critical results. Electrolytes (n=3659, 1.06%) and blood chemistry (n=3383, 0.98%) showed the highest frequency of critical values concerning the total number of tests analyzed in the laboratory. The results obtained in this study show that critical values are frequent results in the emergency laboratory; therefore, establishing timely reporting protocols will contribute to the continuous improvement of therapeutic management, safety and reduction of patient risk. Keywords: Critical laboratory values, alert values, clinical laboratory.