title: Patient identification errors: the detective in the laboratory.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The eradication of errors regarding patients' identification is one of the main goals for safety improvement. As clinical laboratory intervenes in 70% of clinical decisions, laboratory safety is crucial in patient safety. We studied the number of Laboratory Information System (LIS) demographic data errors registered in our laboratory during one year.
  
  
  METHODS
  The laboratory attends a variety of inpatients and outpatients. The demographic data of outpatients is registered in the LIS, when they present to the laboratory front desk. The requests from the primary care centers (PCC) are made electronically by the general practitioner. A manual step is always done at the PCC to conciliate the patient identification number in the electronic request with the one in the LIS. Manual registration is done through hospital information system demographic data capture when patient's medical record number is registered in LIS. Laboratory report is always sent out electronically to the patient's electronic medical record. Daily, every demographic data in LIS is manually compared to the request form to detect potential errors.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Fewer errors were committed when electronic order was used. There was great error variability between PCC when using the electronic order.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  LIS demographic data manual registration errors depended on patient origin and test requesting method. Even when using the electronic approach, errors were detected. There was a great variability between PCC even when using this electronic modality; this suggests that the number of errors is still dependent on the personnel in charge of the technology.
authors: Clinical Laboratory Department, Hospital Universitario de San Juan, San Juan de Alicante, Spain; Biochemistry and Molecular Pathology Department, Universidad Miguel Hernandez, Elche, Spain. Electronic address: salinas_mar@gva.es.
authors: Maria
authors: M
authors: Salinas
authors: Maite
authors: M
authors: López-Garrigós
authors: Rosa
authors: R
authors: Lillo
authors: Mercedes
authors: M
authors: Gutiérrez
authors: Javier
authors: J
authors: Lugo
authors: Carlos
authors: C
authors: Leiva-Salinas
mesh_terms: D064790:Clinical Laboratory Services; D003951:Diagnostic Errors; D006801:Humans; D010355:Patient Identification Systems; D013030:Spain
keywords: GP; HIS; LIS; Laboratory management; PCC; Patient identification error; Patient safety; SOP; epm; errors per million; general practitioner; hospital information system; laboratory information system; patients from several origins; primary care centers