Quality indicators in the clinical laboratory: an integrative review

Abstract

Laboratory quality is defi ned as the assurance that every step of the testing process is performed correctly. In order to improve the quality of laboratories, it became necessary to create minimum organizational standards for them to function. The clinical laboratory must ensure the reliability of the laboratory services provided through internal and external quality control. All systematic actions necessary to provide confi dence in the laboratory services to meet patient health needs and prevent errors from occurring are defi ned by the operational component of the quality control system that can be measured using quality indicators. This work aims to identify which quality indicators are most commonly used among clinical laboratories and in which phase of the testing process the highest number of errors is observed. An integrative review of articles was carried out using Virtual Health Library with the keywords: Quality Indicators and Clinical Laboratory, from 2016 to 2021, in English, Spanish and Portuguese languages. Among the articles found, 15 were selected, addressing the extra-analytical and analytical phases. Most authors described the pre-analytical phase due to the high amount of errors observed in this step, followed by the post-analytical step; superfi cially, the analytical step was mentioned since it presents the lowest amount of errors in the laboratory. The proper use of quality indicators is a very useful tool in laboratory management, especially in the extra-analytical stages. It is up to each manager to choose the quality indicators that best meet their needs, considering patient safety in addition to economic aspects.