Therapeutic turnaround times for common laboratory tests in a tertiary hospital in Kenya.

ABSTRACT:

Methods

We evaluated therapeutic TAT for a tertiary hospital in Western Kenya, using a time-motion study focusing specifically on common hematology and biochemistry orders. The aim was to determine significant bottlenecks in diagnostic testing processes at the institution.

Results

A total of 356 (155 hematology and 201 biochemistry) laboratory tests were fully tracked from the time of ordering to availability of results to care providers. The total therapeutic TAT for all tests was 21.5 ± 0.249 hours (95% CI). The therapeutic TAT for hematology was 20.3 ± 0.331 hours (95% CI) while that for biochemistry tests was 22.2 ± 0.346 hours (95% CI). Printing, sorting and dispatch of the printed results emerged as the most significant bottlenecks, accounting for up to 8 hours of dela

SUBMITTER: Mwogi T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7141613 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature