Routinely collected laboratory data : a neglected resource

This essay is based on the Professor Hendrik Koornhof's guest address delivered on 1st September 2011 by Professor Jill Murray at the Laboratory Medicine Congress held at the Sandton Convention Centre. Following the address, Professor Hendrik Koornhof was awarded a life-time achievement award in honour of his contribution to laboratory medicine. All health care professionals should keep abreast of the latest developments in their fields. The continuing quest for new knowledge is conducted through research. Many laboratory technologists make valuable contributions to research, however, most of the time their role is that of assistants to other health care professionals and scientists. Too few medical technologists conduct their own investigations. The absence of studies in routine laboratory practice implies a tacit assumption that current practice will not change and is therefore boring! Reasons given for not doing research include lack of time and lack of resources. There is also the problem of which area of laboratory medicine to study and being familiar enough with the subject to develop good research questions. Research is perceived as time consuming, requiring a lot of funding and specialist knowledge. By looking carefully at the resources within one’s own laboratory, the requirements for time and money can be minimised and you will be able to utilise your knowledge in your own area of expertise. As part of the routine service, which is an integral part of patient care, all laboratories produce and retain large amounts of data. Collecting, organizing and studying this data can increase medical knowledge. Researching routinely collected data minimises the time and costs associated with data collection. In addition the data is in an area of medicine in which the laboratory has experience and expertise. Because of the expert knowledge available in the laboratory there will be an understanding of what is known and what is not; a prerequisite for the formulation of research questions and hypotheses. This paper will look at the type of data available to laboratories; how to report and display this data and the type of research questions that routinely collected data can answer