Using College of American Pathologists Workload Units for Intralaboratory Comparison

Abstract

At Temple University Hospital, a 504-bed urban teaching hospital, we have adapted the College of American Pathologists (CAP) workload units from the last published guidelines of the 1992 format to the 1998 Meditech Laboratory Information System MAGIC, version 4.6 (Westwood, MA). At our institution, the laboratory information system was interfaced with the hospital information system—Eclipsys 7000 Series (Atlanta). CAP workload units were adapted for the clinical microbiology and immunology laboratories, which include bacteriology, mycology, parasitology, mycobacteriology, virology, and microbial immunology laboratories. All tests and procedures in the clinical microbiology and immunology laboratories were assigned workload unit values and were compared with workload unit values using the 1992 guidelines. Workload unit values for most procedures were incorporated directly into the Meditech Laboratory Information System; values for general laboratory support procedures such as quality control, phone calls, gowning, gloving, degloving, and other general procedures were incorporated monthly. Databases such as this can be quite useful in monitoring monthly workload trends, increases in workload due to laboratory mergers and acquisitions, and intralaboratory annual laboratory statistics.