Urgent (“STAT”) testing in chemical pathology — Position paper

Increasingly heavy use is made of the pathology laboratory in many hospitals. This can cause problems, particularly with regard to urgent (“stat”) tests, where a result is required in a short time. Many small laboratories are forced to offer a wide battery of tests, many of which may not help greatly in the acute diagnosis and/or management of the patient, and are expensive and inconvenient to perform. This paper addresses the questions as to which (chemical pathology) analytes should be available as emergency (“stat”) tests, and how long should it take for results to come back.