A Potassium-Based Quality-of-Service Metric Reduces Phlebotomy Errors, Resulting in Improved Patient Safety and Decreased Cost.

A quality-of-service algorithm that involved monitoring potassium concentrations on a per-phlebotomist basis with feedback and retraining contributed to a concrete, data-based quality improvement plan. The institution-wide implementation of this metric allowed for significant cost savings and a reduction in critical value alerts, directly affecting the quality of patient care.