Analysis of Laboratory Critical Values During COVID-19 Pandemic at Tertiary Hospital in Saudi Arabia

Purpose: One of the most important aspects of post-analytical laboratory activity is the notification of critical results. Therefore, the aim of this study was to illustrate and analyze the prevalence of critical result values of our clinical laboratory investigations during the pandemic stages of coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) and other research pre-pandemic stages. Methods: The seven-month study was conducted between May 2020 and November 2020. Laboratory data of critical results were collected in this retrospective cohort. Results: In total, 221,384 routine tests and 84,451 STAT tests were performed in our clinical laboratory. Of the 3183 (1.44%) tests result was identified as having Critical values, consisting of 2220 (69.74%) and 963 (30.25%) tests in biochemistry and hematology assays. Among the tests with critical values, 39.6% of which were from emergency department (ED) as STAT testing (1262) and 60.3% (1921) as TAT testing. Testing was found in routine inpatients and outpatients, 58% and 2.3%, respectively, and the most frequent parameter notified was sodium. Conclusion: In our practice, we observed that the higher level of frequency of critical values results is related to inpatients, contradicting several researchers reporting that the higher percentages of critical values were from ED.