APPLICATION OF SIX SIGMA DMAIC METHODOLOGY FOR REDUCING PRE-ANALYTICAL AND POST-ANALYTICAL ERRORS IN CLINICAL LABORATORY TESTING

Abstract

Laboratory scientists are required to guarantee precision and accuracy in the results of diagnostic tests, as this directly impacts patient satisfaction. The Total Testing Process (TTP) of medical laboratories experiences errors that are broadly classified into three types. The errors studied in this paper are pre-analytical and post-analytical errors, and the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, and Control) methodology is applied to reduce these types of errors. Pre-analytical errors are those that happen before the testing of the sample. The majority of errors happen in this testing process. Before the introduction of the improvements, the average percentage of pre-analytical errors was recorded as 16.12%. The average percentage of post-analytical errors, which happen after the testing of the sample but before the results are delivered, was recorded as 1.01% before improvements. The results show that there are significant reductions in both stages of errors, i.e., the rate of pre-analytical errors was reduced to 5.38%, and the rate of post-analytical errors was reduced to 0.37%. The results prove that the DMAIC methodology can be applied to improve quality and reduce errors in medical laboratory testing