Department of Laboratory Medicine, Paracelsus Medical University Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.
Department of Medical Laboratory Diagnostics, University Hospital "Sveti Duh", University of Zagreb, Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, Zagreb, Croatia.
Clin Chem Lab Med. 2022 Nov 4;61(5):732-740. doi: 10.1515/cclm-2022-1036. Print 2023 Apr 25.
In order to guarantee patient safety, medical laboratories around the world strive to provide highest quality in the shortest amount of time. A major leap in quality improvement was achieved by aiming to avoid preanalytical errors within the total testing process. Although these errors were first described in the 1970s, it took additional years/decades for large-scale efforts, aiming to improve preanalytical quality by standardisation and/or harmonisation. Initially these initiatives were mostly on the local or national level. Aiming to fill this void, in 2011 the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) working group "Preanalytical Phase" (WG-PRE) was founded. In the 11 years of its existence this group was able to provide several recommendations on various preanalytical topics. One major achievement of the WG-PRE was the development of an European consensus guideline on venous blood collection. In recent years the definition of the preanalytical phase has been extended, including laboratory test selection, thereby opening a huge field for improvement, by implementing strategies to overcome misuse of laboratory testing, ideally with the support of artificial intelligence models. In this narrative review, we discuss important aspects and milestones in the endeavour of preanalytical process improvement, which would not have been possible without the support of the () journal, which was one of the first scientific journals recognising the importance of the preanalytical phase and its impact on laboratory testing quality and ultimately patient safety.
为了保证患者安全，世界各地的医学实验室都努力在最短的时间内提供最高质量的服务。通过旨在避免整个检测过程中分析前误差的方法，实现了质量改进的重大飞跃。尽管这些误差早在 20 世纪 70 年代就已被描述，但经过多年/几十年的努力，通过标准化和/或协调，旨在提高分析前质量的大规模努力才取得成效。最初，这些举措主要是在地方或国家层面上进行的。为了填补这一空白，2011 年，欧洲临床化学和实验室医学联合会（EFLM）工作组“分析前阶段”（WG-PRE）成立。在其存在的 11 年中，该小组能够就各种分析前主题提供若干建议。WG-PRE 的一项重大成就是制定了关于静脉采血的欧洲共识指南。近年来，分析前阶段的定义已经扩大，包括实验室检测选择，从而通过实施克服实验室检测滥用的策略，为改进提供了广阔的领域，理想情况下，人工智能模型可以提供支持。在这篇叙述性综述中，我们讨论了分析前过程改进努力中的重要方面和里程碑，如果没有 () 杂志的支持，这是不可能实现的，该杂志是最早认识到分析前阶段重要性及其对实验室检测质量和最终患者安全影响的科学杂志之一。
