Five-year follow-up of routine outpatient test turnaround time: a College of American Pathologists Q-Probes study.
BACKGROUND
Timely reporting of outpatient tests can increase efficiency of care and improve customer satisfaction.


OBJECTIVE
We conducted a survey in 2002 to determine how quickly hospital-based laboratories turned around routine requests for 3 common assays and compared the results with a similar survey conducted in 1997.


METHODS
One hundred eighteen laboratories prospectively recorded the collection-to-verification turnaround time for 9252 complete blood cell counts (CBCs), 8832 thyroid tests, and 9193 basic metabolic panels.


RESULTS
The median facility reported all test results by 7:00 am of the weekday immediately after the date of specimen collection. The bottom 10% of institutions reported 99% of CBCs and basic metabolic panels within 1 day and 60% of thyroid tests within 1 day. The 65 institutions that participated in both the 1997 and 2002 surveys showed significant overall improvement in turnaround time for all 3 types of tests (P <.001). In 2002, federal institutions had significantly slower turnaround times than nonfederal institutions for CBC tests (P <.001), thyroid tests (P =.03), and basic metabolic panels (P <.001). Other demographic and practice variables were not associated with turnaround time.


CONCLUSIONS
The turnaround time of routine outpatient tests appears to have improved between 1997 and 2002.
Department of Pathology, St Joseph Mercy Hospital, Ann Arbor, Mich 48106-0995, USA. paul@valenstein.org
Paul
P
Valenstein
Molly
M
Walsh
D001772:Blood Cell Count / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019411:Clinical Laboratory Techniques / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D010045:Outpatients / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010338:Pathology, Clinical / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000592:standards; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013960:Thyroid Function Tests / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data