Sorry Louise, as a new starter in my current Trust I’m
no fully aware of our protocol but I’d guess all labs will do something slightly
different, even different disciplines (biochem, haem) within the same Trust from
previous experience, but with more labs processing them than not, certainly for
routine tests.
Also with hospital patient information systems some
receive data on the basis of the ‘hospital number’ and names only and don’t
require or even display a requesting location. Therefore requestors don’t have
the need to state a location as they can have access the results regardless (and
as for paper reports chasing patients round a hospital days later, that’s a
whole other debate. Printing hard copy reports for Unknown locations just serves
as a means of auditing on a monthly basis – by height or weight of the
pile!)
The same issue applies to accurate patient identifiers,
see http://www.npsa.nhs.uk/corporate/news/nhsnumber
(and I KNOW that NOT every person in the country has an NHS number but 99.x%
probably do and there are ways to overcome the small
minority).
I think it’s time we as the laboratory community adopted
a more robust stand on these issues, but we have traditionally bent over
backwards ‘because there is a real patient involved’, giving ourselves many
logistical, administrative and clinical problems along the
way.
The light at the end of the tunnel maybe that ward order
comms from both hospitals and GPs should make things better by automatically
providing (some) of this information.
I don’t known that pharmacy would release medicines to
an unknown location or a dubiously identified patient. Plus who do you charge if
you don’t know where to send the ‘bill’?
And on the subject of money, as a former colleague used
to say ‘If you go to the bank and the cheques not signed, they don’t pay it!’
Have a good weekend all,
Chris
Chris
Reeves
Principal Clincial
Biochemist
Dept of Clinical Biochemistry
Tel: 0161 701 1206
Internal: 11206
The views expressed above are a
personal opinon and do not necessarily reflect those of the Trust, the
Department, or even my colleagues and friends.
From: Clinical biochemistry discussion
list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tilbrook Louise (Mid Essex
Hospital Services NHS Trust)
Sent: 02 October 2009 14:16
To:
[log in to unmask]
Subject: Specimens from unknown
location
Just
something to ponder on a Friday afternoon:
We are currently debating how we
should deal with specimens when the request form does not specify a user or
location (ie we have no means of knowing where to send the report). At present
we book them into our system using a default code and analyse them (often
including work which is referred elsewhere). Then if a user phones up for the
results then we can take their details and issue an amended
report.
I was just curious to know what the
practice is in other labs - do people always accept such specimens and analyse
them, or is there a case for saving specimens un-analysed (at least for the more
expensive tests)?
Our concern is that the majority of
these reports go unviewed and are not acted upon - contributing to the waste
inherent in our service.
Your thoughts and opinions would be
welcome.
Kind
regards
Louise
Tilbrook
Louise
Tilbrook
Principal
Clinical Scientist
Dept of
Clinical Biochemistry
Mid Essex
Hospitals NHS Trust
CM1
7ET
01245
515036
07919
016847
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