Reduction in hospital-wide clinical laboratory specimen identification errors following process interventions: a 10-year retrospective observational study.

Ning HC, Lin CN, Chiu DTY, et al. PLoS One. 2016;11:e0160821.

Correct identification of patient specimens is crucial to timely and accurate diagnosis. This pre–post study demonstrated substantial improvements in already low rates of patient specimen identification errors following each of three successive strategies: discarding improperly labeled specimens, using barcodes, and automating specimen labeling.

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