October 12, 2026
Transcript
Nancy Johnson
Welcome to CAP News. I'm Nancy Johnson with the College of American Pathologists. It's Monday, October 12th. Here's what's making news in pathology and laboratory medicine.
Nancy Johnson
What happens when a laboratory gets an unacceptable proficiency testing result? But the testing itself wasn't the problem. For Path Group, a series of PT failures uncovered a challenge familiar to many laboratories: manual processes that can introduce human error. As labs look to improve quality and efficiency, one collaboration is showing how technology may help. Jamie Miller is a clinical quality assurance specialist at Path Group in Nashville, Tennessee, where she manages proficiency testing for one of the organization's high-volume laboratory sites. By September of 2025, Path Group had identified clerical errors that led to unacceptable results across seven proficiency testing surveys and 14 analytes.
Jamey M. Miller
And each one of those you have to investigate to see, you know, well, why did you miss it? Um and when we went back to look, it it wasn't that there was anything wrong from the instrument. You know, instrument printout was correct and within range. But as humans, we had put the result in wrong when we was typing the results in. So it I mean it it it does show as concerning because when you you know you look at your dashboard, it still shows as unacceptable.
Nancy Johnson
Proficiency testing remains one of the more manual areas of laboratory operations while so many other workflows have become electronic. Steve Box is the global business development director at Lab gnostic, a company that automates this process.
Steve Box
We found with customers that it's more likely that that the lab will want to pursue a digital solution um if they've been through like a challenge with their PT where perhaps they've had an error and that's caused some unintended consequences, um, and then it lifts it up on the radar and puts it on the prior a little bit higher on the priority list.
Nancy Johnson
Through a collaboration among the CAP, Path Group, and Labgnostic, proficiency testing orders and results can now move electronically between systems. Miller says the implementation was surprisingly straightforward, requiring only a few hours of IT work. The payoff has been significant. A large chemistry survey that once took up to 45 minutes to order manually can now be ready for testing in about five minutes. And the technology has solved Path Group's biggest problem.
Jamey M. Miller
Knock on wood, but for all of our quantitative assays that we currently have set up with lab Gnostics, we haven't had any clerical errors. So, you know, when if we have an unacceptable, we know it's something we need to address. We know it's you know, so it's improved . I think this year alone we've only had one clerical error and it was on a qualitative survey.
Nancy Johnson
The benefits extend beyond efficiency. It's about confidence patients can count on. By reducing clerical errors in proficiency testing, Path Group can be more certain that its PT record reflects laboratory performance, not paperwork mistakes.
Steve Box
That means that the process, from a technology perspective, can mirror the patient ordering and reporting process as closely as possible. Almost trying to mirror that reference testing process where a lab order comes into the local lab information system and then it's stored there and then a result's delivered against it, just like in that patient ordering and reporting process.
Jamey M. Miller
As a reference laboratory, we'll get questions from providers. You know, maybe they don't necessarily, maybe the result didn't clinically align with what they expected for the patient. And in those situations, you know, they may ask, you know, well, how is your proficiency testing for that assay? So it's nice to have the section of clerical error removed.
Nancy Johnson
So far in 2026, Miller says Path Group's only clerical PT error occurred on a qualitative assay, an area not yet connected through Labgnostic. And that's where the collaboration is headed next, with the CAP and Labgnostic working to expand this automation into qualitative proficiency testing. That does it for this episode of CAP News. Share this newscast with your social media network. And if you're watching this video on YouTube, hit the like button and leave us a comment. And if you've got a story we should be covering, write to us at stories at CAP.org. We're back tomorrow at 5 AM Eastern for another episode of our newscast. I'm Nancy Johnson. Have a great day.