Timely reporting of outpatient tests can increase efficiency of care and improve customer satisfaction.
We conducted a survey in 2002 to determine how quickly hospital-based laboratories turned around routine requests for 3 common assays and compared the results with a similar survey conducted in 1997.
One hundred eighteen laboratories prospectively recorded the collection-to-verification turnaround time for 9252 complete blood cell counts (CBCs), 8832 thyroid tests, and 9193 basic metabolic panels.
The median facility reported all test results by 7:00 am of the weekday immediately after the date of specimen collection. The bottom 10% of institutions reported 99% of CBCs and basic metabolic panels within 1 day and 60% of thyroid tests within 1 day. The 65 institutions that participated in both the 1997 and 2002 surveys showed significant overall improvement in turnaround time for all 3 types of tests (P <.001). In 2002, federal institutions had significantly slower turnaround times than nonfederal institutions for CBC tests (P <.001), thyroid tests (P =.03), and basic metabolic panels (P <.001). Other demographic and practice variables were not associated with turnaround time.
The turnaround time of routine outpatient tests appears to have improved between 1997 and 2002.