083 - The postanalytical phase: critical values reporting
Autor(s): G. Lippi
Issue: RIMeL - IJLaM, Vol. 2, N. 3-S1, 2006 (MAF Servizi srl ed.)
Page(s): 83-87
Critical values (also known as panic or alarm values) highlight a laboratory test result associated with a serious risk for the patient’s health, requiring immediate communication to the physician to establish appropriate and punctual therapeutic interventions. Although critical values are universally recognized as essential standards for the good laboratory practice, their implementation and management still represent matter of debate worldwide. On the national basis, the situation is rather heterogeneous. Major issues are represented by the lack of a national agreement on the opportunity to identify critical values notification as an essential tool to identify high-risk conditions, the need to identify clinically reliable parameters and relative thresholds, the personal skill to identify critical results of laboratory testing, the procedures, either active or passive, for appropriate notification, the subsequent clinical strategies. The implementation of standardized and universally accepted procedures appears as yet an essential policy to provide rational and efficient solutions to this underestimated issue.