Criteria for Unacceptable Specimen

The following specimens will be rejected:

Specimens	Clotted specimen Contaminated specimen Insufficient specimen Mislabelling of specimen (wrong patient identification) Unlabelled specimen Wrong dilution
Specimen container	Specimen leakage and spillage Wrong specimen container used
Patient information	Insufficient information submitted Incorrect information submitted Mislabelling of form (information on specimens labels and form differ)
Transport condition	Delayed specimen Improper specimen condition (temperature, frozen, in ice) Improper Transport condition (eg. Blood gas specimen send via the pneumatic system)

To ensure a high level of patient safety, specimens that are wrongly labelled will ordinarily be rejected. A fresh specimen must then be submitted for testing.

Wrongly labelled specimens that fall into the category of specimens that are either irreplaceable or hard to obtain may be reviewed for testing on a case-to-case basis. The responsible physician in charge must obtain a memo or email from his / her Division Chairman or delegate for approval to correct the labelling error. Irreplaceable specimens include specimens that are either non-replaceable (e.g. histopathology specimens) or difficult to obtain (e.g. cerebrospinal fluid samples).

In the situation when specimens are rejected, the reason for rejection will be documented in the Laboratory information system and the rejected specimen will be safely disposed of.