Evaluation of phlebotomy quality metrics: An effective tool for quality patient care

Introduction: Contrary to popular belief, phlebotomy is not just about venipuncture. Still, it is much more than that as phlebotomy is considered a natural face of any laboratory that provides vital support for complete diagnostic services. Quality in laboratory results significantly impacts the diagnosis and management of patients since about 80% of all medical decisions are based on laboratory results. Quality indicators (QIs) are known to analyse the performance of laboratories and monitoring of QIs leads to finding areas that need improvement. QIs are qualitative or quantitative information associated with an event, process or result put under observation, which can evaluate the changes over time. It is also able to verify achievement by comparing it with set criteria. Materials and Methods: A laboratory-based cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate QIs from January 2017 to date undertaken to evaluate the following quality parameters: (a) incompletely filled requisition forms (RFs), (b) wrongly labeled samples, (c) haemolysed samples, (d) clotted samples, (e) turnaround time estimation and (f) topographical errors. These indicators were captured daily and analysed monthly, and appropriate remedial steps were taken. Results: A total of 315,250 samples were received during the study period. In the pre-analytical phase, incomplete RFs 3783 (1.2%) was the poorest QI, followed by haemolysis 2522 (0.8%) samples. Conclusion: Continuous monitoring of QIs not only helps provide error-free services but also helps qualitative improvement of diagnosis services along with better patient care.