Background& Objective: Each laboratory should determine the type of errors and turnaround time (TAT), especially in the preanalytical phase to report quality and timeliness of the test results. The current study aimed at investigating the common causes of preanalytical errors in biochemistry and hematology laboratories and evaluating the preanalytical ...

Preanalytical uncertainty is attributable to variations in blood sample collection and sample handling before analysis. The aim of this study was to establish a modelling framework for estimating preanalytical uncertainty. There is a need for standardization on which uncertainty sources that should be included, and how the preanalytical uncertainty should be estimated. In Paper I, an uncertaint...

BACKGROUND Most errors in a clinical chemistry laboratory are due to preanalytical errors. Preanalytical variability of biospecimens can have significant effects on downstream analyses, and controlling such variables is therefore fundamental for the future use of biospecimens in personalized medicine for diagnostic or prognostic purposes. CONTENT The focus of this review is to examine the pre...

Urine may be a waste product, but it contains an enormous amount of information. Well-standardized procedures for collection, transport, sample preparation and analysis should become the basis of an effective diagnostic strategy for urinalysis. As reproducibility of urinalysis has been greatly improved due to recent technological progress, preanalytical requirements of urinalysis have gained im...

Laboratory diagnostics develop through different phases that span from test ordering (pre-preanalytical phase), collection of diagnostic specimens (preanalytical phase), sample analysis (analytical phase), results reporting (postanalytical phase) and interpretation (post-postanalytical phase). Although laboratory medicine seems less vulnerable than other clinical and diagnostic areas, the chanc...

Patient safety is a leading challenge in healthcare and from the laboratory perspective it is now well established that preanalytical errors are the major contributor to the overall rate of diagnostic and therapeutic errors. To address this, the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine Working Group for Preanalytical Phase (EFLM WG-PRE) was established to lead in standa...

BACKGROUND: Reliability cannot be achieved in a clinical laboratory through the control of accuracy in the analytical phase of the testing process alone. Indeed a "mistake" can be defined as any defect occuring during the testing process. In the analysis of clinical specimens, there are many possible preanalytical sources of error. Therefore, the application of quality system to laboratory test...

BACKGROUND Metabolomics is a powerful tool that is increasingly used in clinical research. Although excellent sample quality is essential, it can easily be compromised by undetected preanalytical errors. We set out to identify critical preanalytical steps and biomarkers that reflect preanalytical inaccuracies. METHODS We systematically investigated the effects of preanalytical variables (bloo...

The preanalytical phase includes a set of processes that are difficult to define because they take place in different places and at different times. Classically, the preanalytical phase included all processes from the time a laboratory request is made by a physician until the sample is ready for testing. While this definition is very informative, errors that occur at this stage often become app...

Total quality in laboratory medicine should be defined as the guarantee that each activity throughout the total testing process is correctly performed, providing valuable medical decision-making and effective patient care. In the past decades, a 10-fold reduction in the analytical error rate has been achieved thanks to improvements in both reliability and standardization of analytical technique...