Quality indicators to quality reports: Comparative study of two clinical biochemistry laboratories from Southern India, a cross-sectional study

Background - Good laboratory practice is based on the simple doctrine which states, “in a laboratory what moves, needs to be trained, what does not move needs to be calibrated, whatever happens, needs to be documented, and whatever is not documented has never happened’. These principles can be used to improve the quality indicators (QIs) and quality reports (QRs) and can potentiate the total testing process (TTP). Methods – We did a cross-sectional study where annual sample rejection rates from clinical biochemistry laboratories of two quaternary care hospitals in Southern India were compared with similar studies from developing and developed countries. Results – Annual sample rejection rate from laboratory 1 was 0.912%, and 1.69% from laboratory 2. The overall median rejection rate worldwide was 1.3. Hemolysis was the most common cause of rejection from both laboratories. Two criteria, inadequate volume (Quantity not sufficient) and wrong vacutainer, were consistent with 90% of the studies worldwide. Conclusion – To overcome the widespread disparity in sample rejection criteria, this study proposes adopting standard rejection criteria and formulating the national average for rejection