ResearchPneumatic Tube Delivery System for Blood Samples Reduces Turnaround Times Without Affecting Sample Quality
Section snippets
Ethics
This quality assessment study did not involve human subjects or experiments and therefore was deemed by our hospital and university Review Ethics Board to be exempt from formal approval. Identification of blood samples was removed as the data for each sample were entered into a computer database for analysis. This process maintained the confidentiality of patient information by eliminating all patient identifiers from each sample.
Setting
The setting was 2 emergency departments of a multisite, tertiary
Results
Table 1 illustrates that the turnaround time for hemoglobin was significantly less than that for serum potassium (F[1,660] = 406, P < .001). More importantly for the current discussion, the same table illustrates that the turnaround time for the PTS was significantly less than that of a human courier system (F[1,66] = 136, P < .001). Finally, the hemolysis rate of 7/121 (5.8%) observed with a PTS did not differ from the rate of 20/200 (10%) observed with a human courier (χ2 = .174, P > .15).
Discussion
The results of this study demonstrate that transportation of blood specimens from the emergency department to the laboratory via a PTS can be time effective without compromising the quality of the samples. A previous study simultaneously comparing TATs via a human courier and a PTS found no statistical difference between the two.6 However, students were employed specifically for the purpose of carrying the specimens to the laboratory in that study, presumably as soon as the specimens were
Conclusion
The use of a pneumatic tube delivery system for transporting blood samples from the emergency department to the laboratory can significantly reduce the TATs of results without a reduction in sample quality.
Christopher M.B. Fernandes is Professor and Head of Emergency Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
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Christopher M.B. Fernandes is Professor and Head of Emergency Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Andrew Worster is Clinical Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine, Hamilton Health Sciences and McMaster University, and Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Kevin Eva is Assistant Professor, Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Stephen Hill is Assistant Professor, Hamilton Regional Laboratory Medicine Program and Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Catherine McCallum is Quality Manager, Hamilton Regional Laboratory Medicine Program, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Presented at the American College of Emergency Physicians Research Forum, Boston, Massachusetts, October 2003.