AUTOVERIFICATION OF THE PERIPHERAL-BLOOD COUNT

This article describes a software design for autoverification that emulates the algorithm used to verify blood counts in a large teaching hospital laboratory. The user designs the individual test criteria in the plan's configuration. These criteria may be modified to suit the needs of individual laboratories. The software logic that supports decision making uses current results, previous results, result range flags, instrument flags, and variable delta checking in the automated process. The user-designed criteria supports an autoverification performance rate of greater than 70% of all blood counts performed daily at this institution. The configuration used is sensitive enough to correctly identify a mislabeled or misdrawn specimen. The benefits of autoverification include consistent result reporting, greatly decreased specimen turnaround time, enhanced workflow, and reduced laboratory overhead.