Analysis of the preanalytical phase of the clinical laboratory process at the León Becerra Hospital in Guayaquil

Abstract

The article presents the main results obtained from the diagnosis to the clinical laboratory process, developed by students and teachers of the Clinical Laboratory career of the Instituto Superior Universitario Espíritu Santo; with the objective of characterizing the current state of the preanalytical phase of the clinical laboratory process in relation to adverse events that affect the quality of care and patient safety, at the León Becerra Hospital in the city of Guayaquil. A polymodal methodology and exploratory and hermeneutic research were followed; Theoretical methods such as analysis-synthesis and inductive-deductive methods were used; within the empirical ones, observation, interview, and survey. The population was made up of patients and health professionals; Percentage analysis was used to process the survey data; which allowed us to conclude that, although the clinical laboratory is one of the fundamental areas within health services, because it plays a crucial role in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of patients, it also represents one of the most critical areas. of the health system due to the high incidence of errors that can compromise the quality of results and patient safety, particularly in the pre-analytical phase, Identifying among the most common errors in this phase, failures in patient identification, errors in sample collection, little or no patient preparation, inadequate transportation and storage conditions, and errors in sample collection.