Real-time Display of Laboratory Testing Status Improves Satisfaction Levels in an Emergency Department: A Pilot Study

Background: Clinicians need to know timelines of requested laboratory tests to provide effective patient management. We developed a real-time laboratory progress checking system and measured its effectiveness using appropriate indicators in an emergency room setting.

Methods: In our original in-house health information system display, blank spaces, which were generated for test results when tests were ordered, remained empty until the final results reported. We upgraded the laboratory reporting system to show real-time testing information. The stages included requests for test, label printing, sampling, laboratory receipts, performance of tests, verification of results, and interpretation of results and final report by laboratory physician. To assess the usefulness of the function, we measured the emergency department healthcare workers' satisfaction and compared the number of phone calls about test status before and after implementation.

Results: After the system upgrade, the healthcare workers' understanding of the testing process increased significantly as follows. More clinicians could estimate the time of final test results through the real-time testing status information (61.9% and 85.7%, P = .002), and respondents reported that the upgraded system was more convenient than the original system (41.3% and 22.2%, respectively, P = .022). The number of phone calls about the test status decreased after implementation of the upgrade; however, the difference was not statistically significant (before, 0.13% [63 calls/48 637 tests] and after, 0.09% [42/46 666]; P = .066).

Conclusions: The real-time display of laboratory testing status increased understanding of testing process among healthcare workers in emergency room, which ultimately may increase the usefulness and efficiency of the laboratory service use.