Managing the patient identification crisis in healthcare and laboratory medicine

“…Based on the number of mix-ups detected with a sex-check, it is expected that Lifelines still contains 56 sample mix-ups, constituting 0.15% of the total samples. In contrast, a diagnostic setting only allows for 0.01% to 0.1% sample mix-ups ( Lippi et al , 2017 ). We could use Idéfix to limit the mix-up rate in Lifelines to a mix-up rate of 0.01%.…”

“…By cross-referencing recorded meta-data with whole-genome data, we were able to perform a genomic audit, providing a level of certainty in individual identity to our samples. Sample mix-ups are common and somewhat unavoidable, especially for long-term field studies (Broman et al, 2015; Duntsch et al, 2022; Lippi et al, 2017; Lobo et al, 2021; Lynch et al, 2012), but are difficult to detect and underacknowledged. The concentration of errors (66.0%) within a single decade-old microplate highlights a vulnerability potentially during the aliquoting phase of transferring samples into high-density formats.…”

“…Patient identification is crucial to the correct labeling of diagnosis, on which decisions regarding further workup and management of the patient are made. Failure to correctly document the patient identifiers, which include patient’s name, age, gender, and medical record (MR) number, can result in serious harm and care delay [ 17 ]. In both audit cycles of our quality improvement project, all patient identifiers were correctly documented in all cases showing excellent compliance with the medical practice.…”

“…Based on the number of mix-ups detected with a sex-check, it is expected that Lifelines still contains 56 sample mix-ups, constituting 0.15% of the total samples. In contrast, a diagnostic setting only allows for 0.01% to 0.1% sample mix-ups ( Lippi et al , 2017 ). We could use Idéfix to limit the mix-up rate in Lifelines to a mix-up rate of 0.01%.…”

“…By cross-referencing recorded meta-data with whole-genome data, we were able to perform a genomic audit, providing a level of certainty in individual identity to our samples. Sample mix-ups are common and somewhat unavoidable, especially for long-term field studies (Broman et al, 2015; Duntsch et al, 2022; Lippi et al, 2017; Lobo et al, 2021; Lynch et al, 2012), but are difficult to detect and underacknowledged. The concentration of errors (66.0%) within a single decade-old microplate highlights a vulnerability potentially during the aliquoting phase of transferring samples into high-density formats.…”

“…Patient identification is crucial to the correct labeling of diagnosis, on which decisions regarding further workup and management of the patient are made. Failure to correctly document the patient identifiers, which include patient’s name, age, gender, and medical record (MR) number, can result in serious harm and care delay [ 17 ]. In both audit cycles of our quality improvement project, all patient identifiers were correctly documented in all cases showing excellent compliance with the medical practice.…”

“…Based on the number of mix-ups detected with a sex-check, it is expected that Lifelines still contains 56 sample mix-ups, constituting 0.15% of the total samples. In contrast, a diagnostic setting only allows for 0.01% to 0.1% sample mix-ups ( Lippi et al , 2017 ). We could use Idéfix to limit the mix-up rate in Lifelines to a mix-up rate of 0.01%.…”

“…By cross-referencing recorded meta-data with whole-genome data, we were able to perform a genomic audit, providing a level of certainty in individual identity to our samples. Sample mix-ups are common and somewhat unavoidable, especially for long-term field studies (Broman et al, 2015; Duntsch et al, 2022; Lippi et al, 2017; Lobo et al, 2021; Lynch et al, 2012), but are difficult to detect and underacknowledged. The concentration of errors (66.0%) within a single decade-old microplate highlights a vulnerability potentially during the aliquoting phase of transferring samples into high-density formats.…”

“…Patient identification is crucial to the correct labeling of diagnosis, on which decisions regarding further workup and management of the patient are made. Failure to correctly document the patient identifiers, which include patient’s name, age, gender, and medical record (MR) number, can result in serious harm and care delay [ 17 ]. In both audit cycles of our quality improvement project, all patient identifiers were correctly documented in all cases showing excellent compliance with the medical practice.…”