Whether or not your hospital or healthcare facility has its own lab, ensuring a prompt and appropriate turnaround time (TAT) for a lab sample can significantly impact patient satisfaction and clinical decision-making. TAT is widely defined as the time elapsed from when the lab receives the sample until the sample reports are sent back to the clinical staff with lab verification. Physicians may view TAT as the time between test ordering and result reporting. No matter the definition, both can factor into a patient’s care outcome and experience. For facility leaders with in-house labs, think: when did you last analyze your lab’s average TAT?
What is the Recommended Lab Turnaround Time?
Certain lab samples may take longer, depending on the type of sample (blood, urine, saliva, stool, etc.), but a 2007 Clinical Biochemist Review journal article, since cited over 85 times in other clinical articles, states an acceptable facility-wide TAT goal of having over 90% of common lab samples registered and reported within 60 minutes.
What Should Define a Lab’s Quality?
The article also states that lab technicians, rightfully so, usually limit lab quality discussions to focus on precision and accuracy rather than how quickly they can pump out lab results. However, in addition to delivering the proper care based on lab results, clinicians are more involved with ensuring a positive patient care experience, which most certainly often includes timeliness. Read more >
