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Risk investigations involving genetic identification
Author(s) -
Wenk Robert E.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of healthcare risk management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.221
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 2040-0861
pISSN - 1074-4797
DOI - 10.1002/jhrm.5600190107
Subject(s) - identification (biology) , sample (material) , identity (music) , computer science , genetic marker , odds , certainty , medicine , biology , genetics , machine learning , mathematics , chemistry , botany , physics , logistic regression , geometry , chromatography , gene , acoustics
Risk managers should consider misidentifications as causes of otherwise unexplained diagnostic and process errors. Genetic tests are powerful tools that can resolve problem cases and indicate ways to improve patient‐sample identification. Genetic typing, especially for DNA markers, has provided evidence of patient or sample identity in 21 of 22 hospital and laboratory cases of accidental or intentional patient misidentification, specimen mislabeling, and sample contamination. Identity is established with very high probability if infrequent genetic markers are observed in both unknown and reference specimens. The odds of a match of markers express both the infrequency of finding the match by chance (in specified populations) and the adequacy of testing. Genetic tests establish nonidentity with virtual certainty.