Clinical pathology
Author:
Mikael Häggström, M.D. [note 1]
Contents
Topics with own articles
Lab management
Lab management is essentially about handling each of the extremely various situations that arise, and can generally be achieved by:
- Common sense
- Gathering enough information before a decision
- Identifying what questions needs answering
- Looking up relevant information in proper sources and/or asking proper expertise.
Test question
(You may skip this question if you don't expect to ever be part of laboratory management in the US.) You work in a pathology department in the United States, which is accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP). Your local procedure manual states that non-forensic paraffin-embedded blocks must be retained for at least 10 years before being thrown away. In order to save archive space, it is suggested that the retention time is reduced to 5 years. You look up the issue, and find that the U.S. law states that such blocks must be retained for at least 2 years. Is it acceptable to reduce the retention time of non-forensic paraffin-embedded blocks to 5 years in this case?
For quick look-up in the future, the following are the most relevant retention times, as given by U.S. law[1] as well as by CAP[2]:
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Notes
- ↑ For a full list of contributors, see article history. Creators of images are attributed at the image description pages, seen by clicking on the images. See Patholines:Authorship for details.
Main page
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 . 42 CFR § 493.1105 - Standard: Retention requirements.. Cornell Law School. [68 FR 3703, Jan. 24, 2003; 68 FR 50723, Aug. 22, 2003]
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 . CAP Policy Manual - Policy PP. Minimum Period of Retention of Laboratory Records and Materials. CAP.org. Adopted August 1995. Revised September 2020
Image sources