Quality Control in Hospital Laboratories: Daily Habits That Prevent Errors

Accurate lab reports depend on routine checks, not luck. These daily quality-control habits help hospital laboratories catch errors before a report reaches the doctor.

A laboratory report is only useful if the doctor can trust it. Most lab errors are not caused by faulty analysers but by small gaps in daily routine: a missed control run, an expired reagent or a result that nobody double-checked. Building a few habits into every shift prevents most of them.

Start every shift with control samples

Run internal quality-control samples before reporting patient results, and record the values every time. If a control falls outside its accepted range, stop reporting on that test until the cause is found and corrected.

Keep calibration and maintenance logs

• Record each calibration with the date, the technician and the result
• Note reagent lot numbers and opening dates on every bottle
• Follow the manufacturer maintenance schedule for each analyser
• Keep logs where the next shift can find them easily

Use delta checks

A delta check compares a new result with the same patient's previous value. A sudden, unexplained change can point to a mislabelled sample or a transcription error rather than a real change in the patient. Review these cases before releasing the report.

Handle critical values quickly

1. Define critical limits for common tests with your pathologist
2. Highlight critical results as soon as they are entered
3. Inform the treating doctor or ward without waiting for the full report
4. Record who was informed and at what time

Quick tipReview the past week's rejected samples and repeated tests every Monday. Patterns in these lists usually show exactly which step of the process needs attention.

How software helps

Laboratory software can store reference ranges, flag abnormal and critical values automatically, keep an audit trail of who entered and validated each result, and show a patient's previous values beside the new ones. The habits still matter, but the system makes them easier to follow every day.