Impact and frequency of IV fluid contamination on basic metabolic panel results using quality metrics

Abstract

Clinical laboratories invest substantial time and resources to mitigate measurement error but potential errors during the preanalytical phase of testing are not subjected to the same level of scrutiny. Herein, we assess the proportions of intravenous (IV) fluid contamination sufficient to exceed common performance metrics and compare it to contaminated results flagged by current protocols.

Keywords

• laboratory errors
• informatics
• iv fluid contamination