Critical Values: Has Their Time Arrived for Cytopathology?

摘要

The concept that certain test results are critical to patient management and must be communicated to the patient care team as rapidly as possible is well accepted in the discipline of laboratory medicine. The idea of critical values was first addressed by Lundberg, who defined critical values as a pathophysiologic derangement that varies so much from normal that it is life threatening if therapy is not started immediately. This concept resulted in several guidelines issued by organizations, including the American Society of Clinical Pathologists, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and the College of American Pathologists (CAP), requiring the institution of critical values policies in laboratory medicine. Subsequent to the dissemination of those regulations, the practice of notifying physicians of these life-threatening laboratory results has become standard practice in laboratory medicine. These critical values are communicated by a laboratory technologist to the physician or nurse responsible for the patient's care. " Precise details regarding which results are deemed critical and how a critical values policy is implemented differ among institutions.