Abstract

Background:The efficient use of hospital resources and healthcare dollars is paramount in today’s healthcareenvironment. Submission of unnecessary tissue blocks may lead to increased costs to the surgical pathologylaboratory and a loss of efficiency in both the technical and professional aspects of gross and histologic evaluation ofa particular specimen. We sought to evaluate the cost of submitting excess tissue blocks on small bowel and/orcolon resections for benign diagnoses and benign appendices.

Results: Overall, in both groups 60% and 38% of cases had extra blocks submitted, respectively.

Conclusion: The extra blocks rarely cause a financial loss. Most importantly, in all cases, the extra blocks did notchange the pathologic final diagnosis but did increase work and therefore, likely decreased efficiency.

Keywords: Grossing; Extra tissue blocks; Value-based surgicalpathology; Quality assurance