Quality assurances: Decreasing clinically irrelevant testing from clinical microbiology laboratories, part II

Laboratorians are well aware of the old adage “garbage in, garbage out.” Contemporary clinical microbiologists now need to make proactive efforts to ensure “quality in, quality out” by improving the pre-analytical and post-analytical components of samples sent to the microbiology laboratory for testing. Part II of this article will focus on recommendations to produce clinically relevant information for urine, stool, and serologic specimens; for patients with neonatal group B streptococcosis: and for problematic formats used in laboratory information systems. This article also describes how clinical microbiology laboratories fit into the new “pay- for-performance” system and discusses the Swiss cheese effect.