Root cause analysis of laboratory turnaround times for patients in the emergency department

INTRODUCTION: Laboratory investigations are essential to patient care and are conducted routinely in emergency departments (EDs). This study reports the turnaround times at an academic, tertiary care ED, using root cause analysis to identify potential areas of improvement. Our objectives were to compare the laboratory turnaround times with established benchmarks and identify root causes for delays. METHODS: Turnaround and process event times …