Clinicians’ compliance with requirements on surgical pathology laboratory request forms

Background: Early and accurate diagnosis has a major impact on outcome of diseases. Prompt delivery by the laboratory on requests sent by clinicians is fundamental to this. For useful laboratory outcomes, clinicians should provide comprehensive information, as required in laboratory request forms. The aim of this study was to analyze how well clinicians complete laboratory request forms. Methods: This is a retrospective descriptive study from January 1 to December 31, 2017. Laboratory request forms submitted with laboratory requests were retrieved and reviewed for completeness of required information. Results: An error prevalence of 12.2% was observed from the analyzed requests, and the average number of errors per request was 1.7. Surgical specialties contributed by far the most errors (t=-7.571; p=0.0000), and biodata information was the group that was mostly omitted from laboratory forms. Conclusion: This study revealed that clinicians submit requests with various irregularities, including suboptimal information, to the histopathology laboratory of our hospital. Regular interaction between clinicians and pathologists is needed in order to enlighten clinicians on the importance of providing necessary information regarding their requests to the laboratory.