Labels and the Wrong Tube

Part of Research Assistant (ASSIST) Training: Copying Without Introducing an Error.

About 1 minutes. Free, in your language, no account needed.

The highest-consequence copying you will do

A sample label carries a participant number, a visit, sometimes a time point. Get it wrong and one person's result is attached to another person's record, and both are now wrong.

It may not be detectable later. Nothing about the result looks unusual; it is simply the wrong person's.

Label at the point of collection

Labels are applied when the sample is taken, with the participant present, checked against their identification. Not in advance for a list of people due that day, and not afterwards from memory.

Pre-labeled tubes waiting on a bench are one of the most reliable ways to produce a misidentified sample.

Check three things, every time

The participant number. The visit. The time point, if the protocol has more than one.

Say them out loud against the request form if you can. It takes a few seconds and it catches the error that reading silently does not.

If a label is wrong or missing

Do not relabel a sample you are not certain about. A tube you cannot positively identify is not a tube to guess at.

Tell the coordinator or the nurse immediately. An unusable sample that everyone knows about costs one repeated test. A wrongly labeled sample that nobody knows about goes into the results.