Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

The pre-analytical phase of laboratory testing involves the collection, labeling, and preparation of samples (i.e. blood) for testing. Pre-analytical errors (PAEs) are important to identify, as they can lead to incorrect laboratory results, misdiagnoses by physicians, and the need for laboratories to repeat sample collection, preparation and testing. Pre-analytical error research is a growing field with much room for new and exciting research. One such area of research is the cost of PAEs, which currently is unexplored in the scientific literature. The goal of this project is to determine the cost of PAEs in a hospital laboratory in dollars and in lost patient-treatment time. The dollar cost will be determined by analyzing the component costs a laboratory pays when a PAE occurs. These include the materials needed for sample collection, preparation, repeated laboratory testing, and wages of staff who perform these duties. The cost of PAEs in lost patient-treatment hours will be calculated by determining the time spent by staff as a result of the error. This will include the time spent recollecting samples and testing them, and the additional time spent by hospital staff caring for patients whose hospital stays are extended as a result of PAEs. The increased patient-treatment time is significant because it represents time that staff could be spending treating new patients. This research will be relevant to hospital laboratories given the current condition of the global economy; budgetary restrictions are occurring across North America, and this research will reveal the savings that hospitals can expect should they reduce laboratory errors. By drawing attention to PAEs and presenting their financial and patient care impacts, we hope that hospitals will be inclined to make changes to pre-analytical laboratory procedures. These are changes that could lead to an improvement in the safety and quality of care experienced by patients in North American health care systems.