Clinical Laboratories Face Deadline to Comply with New Standard for Bar Code Labels on Specimens
Complying with this standard will help reduce errors by improving specimen handling and tracking, and also reduce lab costs by boosting accuracy and quality.
Clinical laboratories have about nine months to comply with a new standard for bar code labels. The deadline for compliance to AUTO12-A, Specimen Labels: Content and Location, Fonts, and Label Orientation, is April 29, 2014.
While compliance next year will not affect a lab’s accreditation, in the coming years accrediting bodies, such as The Joint Commission and the College of American Pathologists are expected to require medical laboratories to comply with this bar code label standard.
