This checklist item has been recently revised. The note indicates "Laboratories must have a policy on how to handle truncated names on labels, if applicable." We are trying to determine the best way to handle this since with computer generated labels the full name is sometimes truncated, especially when the patient has a compound last name. I'd welcome any comments as to how your facility is handling it.  Thanks!

We added a note in our labeling policy what the truncated name would look like, ie a name more than 35 characters would be truncated at 35 characters and have a plus sign. We compare as much of the truncated name as possible, the unique BB identifier number, and another identifier like mrn or DOB.