And do you log sample rejection reasons individually or batch them under a general code? I’m reviewing our last 30 days and hemolysis accounted for 18% of rejects; considering adding fields for needle gauge and transit time from ER to lab to tighten our protocol.
We track rejects individually under a parent code (e.g., hemolysis with cause subcodes) rather than one catch‑all; otherwise it’s like blaming “weather” for every flight delay. One practical step: auto-stamp “transit time” via barcode scans at ER handoff and lab receipt, and capture the analyzer’s “hemolysis index” so you can link it to “needle gauge” and handling. Curious if you have scanners at intake; if not, a simple mandatory time field on the requisition works well.
Quick example: we made draw time and receipt time mandatory so the LIS auto-calculates ‘transit time’, and we added drop‑downs for needle gauge and number of attempts so no one has to write essays. Hemolysis dropped once we started flagging line vs direct venipuncture as a field, since line draws were the main culprits. Might be worth adding ‘line vs direct stick’ to your form to pinpoint that 18% without turning it into a novella.
One tweak that helped us: capture the analyzer’s hemolysis index (numeric) alongside the reject reason and a checkbox for ‘drawn from IV line?’; if the index is high, the LIS prompts for collection‑to‑spin interval. That cut hemolysis rejects about 10% and kept it from feeling like whack‑a‑mole. @rlennox24, do you track ‘spin within 30 min’ or similar?
Building on @henryc_87, the most useful add for us was a required “time-to-separation” field (collection → spin/aliquot); it exposed ER bottlenecks and hemolysis dipped once we fixed delays. Small caveat: make just one field mandatory per reject and include collector ID so you can target coaching without turning the form into a novel.