Review of critical values and their effectiveness

Abstract

Critical values are set by each healthcare organization according to the specific characteristics of its facilities. Reporting critical values is a key component of JCI certification and ISO 15189 accreditation. To enhance the rate of medical record entries within one hour of critical value reporting by medical technologist, so we show findings with tabulations before and after the review. The new critical values were approved by the Clinical Laboratory Appropriateness Committee in July 2020 and started to operate in the same month. We compared reports from April 2019 to March 2020 (“FY 2019”) and April 2021 to March 2022 (“FY 2021”). In FY 2019, the total number of reports was 3,131 (about 261 reports/month) and in FY 2021, the total number of reports was 1,631 (about 136 reports/month). An increase in critical value reporting can strain on laboratory personnel, and interferes with the work of the physicians receiving the reports and may reduce the tension over critical value reporting. In addition to reviewing critical values, we regularly report the results to each department head and keep trying to request cooperation from departments with low reporting rates, but the JCI goal has not been achieved. In the future, we would like to evaluate each item and implement effective measures to further improve the rate of medical record entries.