$1M protection for $39?

The laboratory is often "off the radar" for most hospital administrations, risk management and patient safety departments. Administrations don't often consider the issue of patient safety and error in the laboratory because of the low level of direct patient contact.  They simply don't seem to be high risk.

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But is that perception accurate?

Yes, and no.  While laboratories do a great job in providing quality care for patients, there are still some areas of potential medical-legal exposure, some of which are not typically addressed by anatomic pathology laboratories. These areas have not had significant attention in regards to error reduction, yet they are a source of clinically (and medical-legal) problems.  In fact, it's been estimated that there may be in excess of 80 of these types of errors daily across the United States.  And that might be a low estimate.  It's not a matter of "if", but "when" your laboratory will have this type of error.

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What is the problem?

In the gross room. organization of the patient specimens prior to "grossing in" by the Pathologist, PA or histotechnologist is often a disorganized and messy process, which is fraught with the potential for specimen mix-ups, both with a single patient's specimen set and between different patients.

There has not been any effort in developing any solution for this area....until now.

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The Safety-Spec gross room tray is a simple, effective tool that can be used in your laboratory's patient safety program.   This tool can be incorporated by your laboratory nearly immediately, improving efficiency, reducing stress and helping reduce the potential for specimen mis-identification. 

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Mis-identification can result in:

•    Missed or incorrect diagnosis of cancer in a patient

•    Incorrect location of cancer diagnosis

•    Missed patient treatment, where needed

•    Inappropriately administered treatment, where not needed

Any of these incorrect patient interactions can result in medical malpractice lawsuits against your physicians, your facility and healthcare system.  The avoidable cost to your institution and staff can be enormous, not to mention the stress it causes to all involved healthcare providers.  So the answer is...Yes!  A $39 organizational tray can help reduce the potential in your institution for million dollar malpractice judgements.

What to do?

Maybe a good place to start is to have a visit to your Anatomic Pathology department and see for yourself.  Do YOU feel that sufficient safety practices are in place?  Likely they are not.  That's where your laboratory administration and patient safety advocates can formulate a better practice for the gross room, to help reduce avoidable errors.  And Safety-Spec Gross Room Trays (TM) can be an essential tool in implementation of those plans.

Call us today...and start your journey to improved patient safety in the gross room.

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Safety-Spec, "Gross Room Tray" and "Patient Safety: One Specimen At A Time" 

are Trademarked by Safety-Spec, LLC
Safety-Spec Gross Room Tray: US Patent #9993823. Other patents pending.

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