Quality Laboratory Testing Services
A woman comes into the emergency department with abdominal pain. After doing an assessment, you order some basic labs, a urinalysis, and a urine pregnancy test. While the box on the pregnancy test and all of the training specifically says, “put three drops in it, wait three minutes and look for a line,” the tech doing the test puts numerous drops in and then leaves it on the desk and forgets about it for 30 minutes. What do they see when they walk by? A weirdly shaped and faint pink line? All of a sudden you are telling this patient that they are pregnant and ordering more labs and an ultrasound. At this point, the patient has told all of her family that she is pregnant and they are trying to determine who the is the father. Low and behold her blood work comes back, as well as her ultrasound and guess what? The patient is not pregnant. This was a classic case of user error and this error cost both the hospital and the patient lots of time and money. This is why quality laboratory testing services are important and should be left to the professionals at Pharmacogenetic Testing.
