The Cost of Manual Charting

Charting point-of-care results is generally not performed by the laboratory point-of-care team; however, the oversight of this activity remains the responsibility of the point-of-care program. Although point-of-care management and interfacing are not new, there remain a significant number of hospitals not yet utilizing automated electronic interfaces for charting of results to tests performed outside the clinical laboratory (also known as point of care). This article is designed to help quantify the costs associated with manual charting and help build the case for implementing an automated electronic interface through a return-on-investment method.