Turnaround time (TAT) is commonly defined as the time from when a test is ordered until the result is reported which includes the preanalytical, analytical and post-analytical time. Increased attention to patient’s needs is demonstrated by efforts to improve the quality of the entire service provided, e. g reduction of laboratory turnaround time (TAT). The availability of the results from a lab...

Patient safety is the foundation of good care. In the last decades, a body of evidence has been accumulated to demonstrate that pre- and post-analytical phase are more vulnerable to errors in laboratory medicine than the analytical phase. Aims of the project of the IFCC Working Group on "Laboratory Errors and Patient Safety" (WG-LEPS) are: a) to develop a series of Quality Indicators (QIs), spe...

The measurement of circulating hormones by immunoassay remains a cornerstone in preclinical endocrine research. For scientists conducting and interpreting immunoassay measurements of rodent samples, the paramount aim usually is to obtain reliable and meaningful measurement data in order to draw conclusions on biological processes. However, the biological variability between samples is not the o...

While the frequency of laboratory errors varies greatly, depending on the study design and steps of the total testing process (TTP) investigated, a series of papers published in the last two decades drew the attention of laboratory professionals to the pre- and post-analytical phases, which currently appear to be more vulnerable to errors than the analytical phase. In particular, a high frequen...

The harmonization of laboratory testing is a high priority topic in Laboratory Medicine. It is more than harmonized terminology, units of reporting, methodology and reference intervals but, rather, covers a wide range of topics from the “pre-pre-analytical” phase (‘Right test at the Right time for the Right patient’) to the analytical aspects and reporting of critical results through to consume...