I am not referring here to the Centre for Disease Control, which is a great resource which I use often to look up things I should know anyway, but don’t.

I am referring to the acronym “Clinical Details Culture”, an equally important CDC in my mind.

At the laboratory I work in, we have just implemented a mandatory clinical details policy for all microbiology samples. The only exceptions are those “difficult to obtain” samples taken from sterile site areas. For everything else, if there are no clinical details supporting the testing, then no testing is performed by the laboratory.

Now when I sign out a list of microbiology results I have clinical details on each and every request form. This is wonderful! In a good percentage of cases it changes both the testing and reporting of results. In other words the quality of results being produced has improved. And no longer will I get staff complaining to me that there are no clinical details on forms!

This has not been an easy policy to implement. Even after several months of preparation, there have been a few (almost inevitable) teething  problems which have had to be worked through. One key area is ensuring that all the staff members assess the clinical details provided in a consistent and standardised fashion. This has involved a lot of protocol development and these protocols are still in a process of evolution. For example “Erythema and increased pain leg ulcer” are acceptable details whilst “chronic leg wound” is not, and then there is the myriad of word variations in between. It is not straightforward!

Although most of the clinicians have been supportive of such a policy and indeed have embraced it by including excellent clinical details, there remains a small cohort who refuse to believe that the inclusion of clinical details on microbiology request forms is important. There are a few others that believe in the policy in principle but have concerns over the logistics.

The goal over the next year or so will be to continue to build a clinical details culture amongst clinicians so that clinical information on microbiology forms (and all laboratory request forms) is the expected norm. This represents a positive step for all the involved stakeholders; clinicians, laboratory staff and patients alike.

Along the same lines I hope that many other diagnostic microbiology laboratories both nationally and internationally adopt a similar stance. The presence of clinical details is a key element of effective diagnostic stewardship. Without them, you are already on a hiding to nothing…

Michael