Due to the serious financial condition of the health care insurance system in Japan, many clinical microbiology laboratories in hospitals have been forced to close or downsize, and therefore identification of pathogenic fungi isolated in these hospitals has become more and more difficult. This problem becomes even more serious when rare but clinically important fungi are the causative agents. F...

Physicians are urged to communicate more openly following medical errors, but little is known about pathologists' attitudes about reporting errors to their institution and disclosing them to patients. We undertook a survey to characterize pathologists' and laboratory medical directors' attitudes and experience regarding the communication of errors with hospitals, treating physicians, and affect...

The utilization of the chemical laboratory resources at the Hospital Sains Malaysia was evaluated. More than 100,000 test requests received and performed over a 12-month period, were analyzed retrospectively. The analysis conducted included the abnormal results obtained, the degree of duplication of tests, and the extent of test-panel ordering. It was found that a relatively moderate degree of ...

THE MEMBERS OF THIS PANEL have discussed the statistical problems concerned with errors and control in clinical chemistry. I wish to discuss some technics for performing methods which help improve “control” in the laboratory. One of Webster’s definitions of control is “to exercise.restraining or directing influence over; to dominate; regulate.” Listed synonyms are “restrain, rule, govern, guide...