The trips of slips. Time delays in laboratory and X-ray data for outpatients in a teaching hospital.

The laboratory and x-ray studies performed on 148 outpatients were monitored to see how long it took for the results to be obtained, reviewed, and inserted into the medical record. An average of 27.0 days was required for all of these tasks. This mundane, unwieldly problem clearly deserves more attention, especially in outpatient clinics at teaching hospitals.