Monitor the quality of clinical specimens and the critical value by using laboratory-hospital information system, finally improve the laboratory quality.

The Taian City Center Hospital clinical and laboratory testing process were further optimized, including returns and defective specimens statistics, automatic review and turnaround time (TAT) statistics and directly reported critical values by LIS-HIS system. A retrospective study were proceed to monitored the quality of clinical specimens and the critical value. One comparison analysis was between 191 719 clinical specimens (from July to December 2013) and 161 308 clinical specimens (from January to June 2014), the rate of unqualified specimen, reason of unqualified specimen and turnaround time was recored. Another comparison analysis was between 5987 critical values (from July to December 2013) and 5082 critical values (from January to June 2014), including blood routine, biochemical examination, blood coagulation experiments, and blood gas.

The monitoring system was established successfully. From January to June 2014, 161 308 clinical specimens were accepted with 1356 send-back and 5082 pushed critical values. After the establishment of the monitoring system, the unqualified rates of specimens dropped from the original 1.31% (2511/191 719) to 0.84% (1356/161 308) significantly (χ²=6.03, P<0.05); the average TAT time of routine blood report reduced from 25.9 min to 18.6 min and the biochemical examination report reduced from 156 min to 72 min significantly (U=12.9, P< 0.01). Meanwhile, the critical value report time dropped from 11.2 min to 7.5 min, critical value reporting consistency increased from 98.8% to 100%, the timeliness of doctor’s disposal in critical values increased from 95.2% to 98.2%.

LIS-HIS system can monitor the laboratory specimens timely and accurately; the automatic review can reduce TAT time, meanwhile the LIS-HIS monitoring critical values can improve the timeliness of clinical disposal. In a word, the system improved the quality and management level of clinical laboratory.