2023 ADLM President Talk - The Total Testing Process: Collaboration Between Laboratory Medicine and Emergency Medicine to...

Course overview

Approximately 17% of patients seen in the Emergency Department arrive by Emergency Medical Services and often receive interventions during transport that may affect accurate laboratory testing. Emergency transport and the emergency department are important locations for near-care testing, but often lack a controlled environment for testing. This presentation will describe the total testing process for patients during transport and in the emergency department including: the pre-analytical challenges associated with this patient population, analytical challenges presented in uncontrolled environments, and the collaborative role that the clinical laboratory and emergency medicine play to reduce testing errors.