Posted March 29, 20187 yr comment_72977 All of our TM samples are manually entered into our LIS with ~9,000 samples accessioned monthly. We do capture pre-analytical errors pertaining to the data entry (eg. mis-spelled names, wrong DOB, wrong test selected, etc.). We have been keeping track of our pre-analytical data entry errors in conjunction with the number of samples registered but I am unable to find any literature to compare it to....? Is anyone aware of any published data regarding "acceptable" lab data entry error rates? Thanks and Happy Easter!
March 30, 20187 yr comment_72991 You should be able to find a number of journal articles online, for instance, this one: https://academic.oup.com/ajcp/article/138/suppl_1/A195/1772848 , just by doing a google search. Ideally of course, your quality target should be 0 errors. But practically,I think what you will want to do is establish where you are now and show how, month after month, you are improving on that. Like all projects of this sort, you will end up having to drill down on your data to identify areas that you can improve. Scott
April 12, 20187 yr Author comment_73075 Thanks - I have looked on-line extensively and have not found any literature with an "established" error rate which we could compare to. We are monitoring our rates monthly but it would be nice to know if anyone else has done this and if there is a ball park error rate we could compare ourselves to rather than a full blown six sigma study....
July 18, 20187 yr comment_73982 I have the same problem and I can't find any published date either. Our Transfusion Service rejects between 3-4% of our total blood bank specimens collected. We have been working with Nursing to help correct the problem with Nursing Collected specimens with no luck.
July 19, 20186 yr comment_74008 Again, the acceptable error rate, regardless of where you work or what published literature you can or can not find, has to be zero. Your quality management project just needs to show how you improve on whatever your baseline rate is. The article I cited above does indeed involve entry error rates. ( But I would be surprised if you can get someone at your facility to agree that your error rate is OK because you found a paper that gives an "acceptable' rate that is worse than yours! ) Scott
July 20, 20186 yr Author comment_74022 I appreciate in a perfect world the error rate would be zero; however, this is not feasible as humans are entering data and humans will make mistakes. I am not looking for someone to tell me my error rate is OK because it compares to someone else - I am looking for some benchmarks. For example, if I am at an error rate of 6% and folks in similar sized facilities accessioning similar numbers are around 3% then I know I need to seriously look into our processes and can work towards that goal. If I happen to be around the same error rate as other comparable sites then I will not expect to see as large a decrease in the error rate but will continue to ensure it trends downward. thanks for the discussion...
Create an account or sign in to comment