Emergency medicine and the laboratory.

The laboratory is an extremely important and necessary resource for the emergency department. This article discusses the uniqueness of the relationship and discusses various principles and procedures crucial to the successful operation of an emergency department in a large inner-city hospital. Special consideration is given to the requirements for a stat laboratory, which provides mandatory service for any large general hospital emergency department. A major problem experienced by teaching hospitals relates to the inappropriate use of the laboratory, and this issue is discussed as well as the dynamics that leads to laboratory overuse by emergency department housestaff.