Assessment of Laboratory Turnaround Time and associated factors for Complete Blood Count and Clinical Chemistry Testes in Emergency and Trauma Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
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Date
2022-11
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Background: Laboratory tests are an important contributor to treatment decisions in the
emergency department. Reporting in acceptable turnaround time (TAT) is a crucial indicator of
quality. International standards recommend the laboratory to establish TATs for each of its tests
and periodically evaluate whether or not it is meeting the established TAT. However, Addis
Ababa Burn, Emergency and Trauma (AaBET) hospital is the first dedicated Emergency and
Trauma hospital in Ethiopia, the laboratory‟s TAT was not determined and assessed.
Objective: To determine laboratory turnaround time and associated factors for complete blood
count and clinical chemistry tests at Addis Ababa Burn, Emergency and Trauma hospital.
Method: A prospective cross sectional study was conducted from January to April, 2022. All
emergency patient samples that had at list CBC, and/or Chemistry requests and received at the
laboratory specimen accessioning room were taken consecutively. Using a structured data
collection tool all related information were collected and entered to SPSS version 23 then
calculation of major statistics for the time data (in minutes), bivariate and multivariate
regression analysis were conducted to assess the relationship between high TAT and the
suggested responsible factors. For all statistical tests, P < 0.05 was considered significant.
Results: specimen receipt to verification time data were obtained for 4132 tests. Of which,
2309, (55.9%) of them were CBC and 1823, (44.1%) were chemistry) tests. The determined 90th
percentile (average) completion time for CBC and chemistry were 105 (53.9) and 457 (257.4)
minutes, respectively. More than 28% of the tests did not achieve TAT goals i.e. 60 min for
CBC and 240min for chemistry test. Specimen received in; Sundays, night shifts, sample porter
not presented, and machine related problems encountered working periods were identified to
have significant contribution for delayed TATs.
Conclusion and recommendations: During this initial evaluation, we observed that AaBET
hospitals‟ laboratory test TAT were longer and doesn‟t comply with the available benchmarks.
Improvement in personnel and equipment management may provide effective ways to minimize
test result delays in Emergency and Trauma hospital.
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Keywords
Laboratory turnaround time, Complete Blood Count, Clinical chemistry, Emergency and Trauma hospital