The optimization of turnaround time for blood samples in an emergency clinical laboratory

The University Medical Centre Ljublijana is a 3200-bed general hospital. A laboratory information system, developed to improve the reliability and usefulness of test results, was installed in the emergency laboratory in November 1994. At that time, all test requests received by the laboratory were treated as equally urgent, but in December 1994, a reorganisation took place, which involved the introduction of a priority system. We conducted a study in the period from November 1994 to September 1995. The turnaround time for blood analyses was evaluated by the method of case study. The influence of information technology and organisational changes on individual components of the turnaround time was assessed. This study has shown a positive effect of the recently introduced information technology and organisational changes on the turnaround time. The median turnaround time improved for all phases of the laboratory process. The greatest improvement occurred in validity check time.