Current reforms for the health care system aim to increase quality of services. In keeping with that objective, a new guideline aims to reduce errors in pathology. The College of American Pathologists (CAP) and the Association of Directors of Anatomic and Surgical Pathology (ADASP) have developed a “new evidence-based guideline to provide recommendations for secondary and timely reviews of surgical pathology and cytology cases to improve patient care.” The guideline, titled “Interpretive Diagnostic Error Reduction in Surgical Pathology and Cytology,” was published on the website of the Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine as an Early Online Release. The guideline addresses the analytical phase in which pathologists interpret slides. That interpretation differs from clinical diagnostic testing and requires subjective, “inherent judgment” of the pathologist. Identifying a need for a process to catch potential errors—because the analytical phase doesn’t have formal review processes similar to those implemented in pre- and post-analytical phases—CAP and ADASP created an expert panel of pathologists which studied the issue and recommends in the guideline that secondary case reviews be consistently implemented to find potential diagnostic errors. “To assist anatomic pathologists, we developed five high-level recommendations and expert consensus statements to formalize a process for the review…
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