[Histonet] Tracking Specimens

[Ingles Claire]

Amy:
We get lots of specimens from off site that are either mailed or brought by courier. We have each clinic fill out their own log sheet to send along with the specimens. They have to list patient name and info. Plus patient insurance info if they aren't in our system. They also have to list each individual specimen for each patient, and the site the specimen was taken from. This helps us not only to keep patients straight, but lets us know no specimens were 'lost' during transport. The specimen site is so that the correct site for the specimen label can be verified. We used to have a few mix ups a month where we had to contact the clinic to verify what was what because they had mixed up sites and labels somewhere between the bottle label, the order sheet, and the logsheet. It helps eliminate the "wrong site, wrong side" possibilty. If there is a discrepancy we have an error resolution sheet we fill out, then we contact the clinic to get someone to verfiy what is what. We keep the logsheets in a book to document specimen workload. Hope this helps.
 
Claire   

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Dear Histonetters,



How are Histology Labs keeping an audit trail to track specimens from
the time that they are collected, are picked up from the physicians'
offices by couriers, and then delivered to the Lab that performs the
histology testing?  



What kinds of logs are being kept?  Is anyone using a barcode system?
Do you have an Outreach program?