High-Risk Laboratory Report: Problem and Prevention
Viroj Wiwanitkit MD*
Affiliation : * Department of Laboratory Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok
At present, physicians extensively use laboratory reports as a tool for decision-making in patient care. There is an important group of reports that can be classified as high-risk laboratory report(1). The high- risk reports are complex reports that can bring psychological and social impact on the patient. Examples are reports on oncological disorder, reports on human immunodeficiency virus test and reports on cytogenetic test(2,3). Often, when there is a problem regarding a high-risk report, it becomes the leading news in the next days newspaper. In the present article, the author hereby discusses important aspects of high-risk laboratory reports. 1. Problem Most problems are due to violation of a patient’s rights and improper broadcasting of patient’s secrets. The violation of a patient’s right usually starts from a request from an outside party for information. This is then given without asking permission from the patient(4). The problem of exposing the patient’s secret is usually due to lack of a proper secret keeping system. Sometimes the patient’s secret is exposed to a third party or broadcast via the hospital internet(5). In addition, there are also other problems due to the error of labora- tory workers. 2. Prevention Informed consent must be strictly followed. The pre- and post-counseling should be set and this activity can significantly reduce the problem. Setting of good secret keeping system that covers both documents and online reports is necessary. Total quality management for the whole process is recommended.
Keywords : High-risk, Report, Ethics
