Development and Evaluation of a Laboratory Information System-Based Auto-Dilution and Manual Dilution Algorithm for Alpha-Fetoprotein Assay

No abstract available.

Aviso de valores de alerta por parte del laboratorio clínico en una red de salud universitaria / Laboratory alert value reporting by the clinical laboratory at an academic medical network

Background: An alert value is a result suggesting that the patient is at imminent danger unless appropriate remedial actions begin promptly. Report of alert values (AV) by the clinical laboratories has taken special relevance in recent years due to its contribution to patient's care. Aim: To report results of AV informed during 2007 within the Health Network of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Material and methods: Analysis of AV recorded in a centralized database of the laboratories of the health network, between January and December, 2007. Results: Total number of AV was 5.366, which represented 0.3 percent of total examinations and corresponded mainly to the clinical chemistry area. Potassium levels generated the higher number of AV detected, followed by positive blood cultures. Eighty two percent of AV corresponded to hospitalized patients. The greater number of AV was reported to intermediate and intensive care services. Thirty two percent of AV was informed to the physician or professional in charge of the patient within 5 minutes of obtaining the results and 79 percent within 30 minutes. Conclusions: To obtain a real impact on patient management, it is fundamental to shorten the ¡apse between the obtainment of tests results and the warning, supported on appropriate computerized systems, and to spread the procedure to all personnel involved in patient's care (RevMéd Chile 2009; 137: 1137-44).

Standardization of Terminology in Laboratory Medicine ll

Standardization of medical terminology is essential in data transmission between health care institutes and in maximizing the benefits of information technology. The purpose of this study was to standardize medical terms for laboratory observations. During the second year of the study, a standard database of concept names for laboratory terms that covered those used in tertiary health care institutes and reference laboratories was developed. The laboratory terms in the Logical Observation Identifier Names and Codes (LOINC) database were adopted and matched with the electronic data interchange (EDI) codes in Korea. A public hearing and a workshop for clinical pathologists were held to collect the opinions of experts. The Korean standard laboratory terminology database containing six axial concept names, components, property, time aspect, system (specimen), scale type, and method type, was established for 29,340 test observations. Short names and mapping tables for EDI codes and UMLS were added. Synonym tables were prepared to help match concept names to common terms used in the fields. We herein described the Korean standard laboratory terminology database for test names, result description terms, and result units encompassing most of the laboratory tests in Korea.

Aseguramiento de la calidad analítica y norma ISO 17 025 en laboratorios clínicos y químicos / Securiting of the analytical quality and norm ISO 17 025 in clinical and chemical laboratories

Actualmente hay un gran interés en la estandarización de los sistemas de aseguramiento de calidad en los laboratorios, puesto que la aceptación y credibilidad de sus resultados depende de la identificación de las fuentes de variabilidad, de su control y de la documentación que así lo demuestre. Lo cual es resultado en buena medida de la globalización del mercado de bienes y servicios. En diciembre de 1999, se publicó la norma internacional ISO 17 025, que establece los requisitos administrativos y técnicos que debe cumplir un laboratorio de pruebas o calibración para obtener reconocimiento internacional, dentro del contexto de la Organización Mundial del Comercio. En este artículo se discuten los contenidos de la norma y su aplicación en laboratorios clínicos y químicos.

There is nowadays a strong concern for standardization of laboratory quality assurance systems, since results acceptability and confidence depend on identification of the sources of variability, their control and documentation, as a result to a greater extent of word commercial globalization. During December 1999, the International Standard ISO 17 025 was published, establishing organizational and technical requirements for test and calibration laboratories, in order to get international recognition, into the context of World Trade Organization. In this paper, such requirements are discussed for clinical...

Differential application of rate and delta check on selected clinical chemistry tests

Through the present delta value check used in quality control programs is a powerful tool for detecting random errors in clinical chemistry analysis, it has some problems, such as missed true errors and delays in reporting time, because it also has the potential of showing erroneous positive results. Recently, new calculation methods for delta check with delta difference, delta percent change, rate difference, and rate percent change have been suggested by Lacher and Connelly (Clin Chem 34:1966-1970, 1988). Based on this new delta check method, we made the new criteria of which calculation method is applied to the clinical chemistry tests, i.e., the differential application of rate and delta check, and selectively applied the new method to 17 chemistry tests in order to solve the above problems. The applied criteria were the time dependence of the test item and the coefficient of variation of the absolute delta difference. Calcium, inorganic phosphorus, total protein, albumin, sodium, potassium, and chloride were classified as delta difference calculation method group; glucose and cholesterol as delta percent change group; creatinine, total and direct bilirubin as rate difference group; and urea nitrogen, uric acid, ALP, ALT, and AST as rate percent change group. With the previous criteria by Whitehurst et al. (Clin Chem 221:87-92) for 5045 specimens, the check-out rate was 47.8% (2,411 out of 5,045), and the positive predictive value was 0.41% (10 out of 2,411). For the new criteria, the check-out rate was 12.7% (621 out of 5,045), and the positive predictive value was 1.8% (nine out of 621).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)