National survey on turnaround time of clinical biochemistry tests in 738 laboratories in China.

BACKGROUND: This survey was initiated to estimate the current status of turnaround time (TAT) monitoring of clinical biochemistry in China, provide baseline data for establishment of quality specifications and analyze the impact factors of TAT.

METHODS: 738 laboratories were included. Questionnaires involved general information and data of related indicators of TAT during 1 week were provided to participating laboratories. Nine quality indicators were covered, which were medians, 90th and outlier rates of pre-examination, examination, and post-examination TAT. The 25th percentile, median, and 75th percentile of TATs were calculated as optimum, desirable, and minimum quality specifications. Percentages and sigma values were used to describe the outlier rates. Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to identify the potential impacts of TAT.

RESULTS: Response rate of this survey was 46.44%. More than 50% of the laboratories indicated they had set up target TATs in three time intervals and monitored TATs generally. The post-examination TAT of most laboratories was 0min, while the pre-examination and examination TAT varied. Sigma values of outlier rates for 45%~60% of laboratories were above 4, while 15%~20% of labs whose sigma values were below 3. Group comparisons suggested nurse or mechanical pipeline transportation, link laboratory information system with hospital information system, and using computer reporting instead of printing report were related to shorter TATs.

CONCLUSIONS: Despite of the remarkable progresses of TATs in China, there was also room to improve. Laboratories should strengthen the construction of information systems, identify reasons for TAT delay to improve the service quality continuously.