Evidenced Based Practice (EBP) in Medical Technology in private clinical laboratory setting - Essay Example

The developments of science and technology have contributed to making many of these simpler that they no longer come under the federal oversight requirements. This puts the onus of ensuring that these tests ensure patient care and safety on the private clinical laboratories. (Howerton, D., Anderson, N., Bosse, D., Granade, S.,and Westbrook, G., 2006) The role of the private clinical laboratories is not restricted to simple tests, but as technology evolves so does their role in their contribution to more challenging laboratory testing like drug resistance testing in the management of HIV AIDS.

(Wilson, W.J., 2003). To fulfill their role in patient care and patient safety private clinical laboratories need to be reliable associates of the physicians and yet there are areas in which the clinical laboratories are found to be deficient. These deficiencies include failure to provide useful information to help interpret a test result, standardization of reference ranges and units of measurement, laboratory policies that interfere with patient care, and performance of the wrong test. (Butterly, R.J., 2006).

Errors do occur in laboratory tests and patient safety is impacted by the frequency and the seriousness with which these errors happen in private clinical laboratories. (Howanitz, P.J., 2005). In addition to errors another aspect that is found to be deficient in clinical laboratories that lead act as an impediment to the optimal delivery of healthcare to patients is the poor core laboratory performance that lead to delay in the laboratories providing the test results and as a result lead to delays in diagnosis and treatment.

(Holland, L.L., Smith, L.L., and Blick, K.E., 2005). There are deficiencies in the manner in which private clinical laboratories perform their role in patient care and patient safety. However, the issues that need to be taken into consideration is whether they are