TAT (Turnaround Time)

Turnaround time measures how long a test takes to come back. Which two points it is measured between matters enormously and is rarely stated: order-to-result includes the wait for collection, collection-to-result does not, and analyser-to-result measures only the machine. A laboratory quoting a flattering TAT is often quoting the narrowest of the three.

Why it matters in a hospital

In an outpatient clinic, TAT decides whether a patient waits for their result or comes back another day — which is a clinical question as much as a convenience one, because the patient who leaves may not return. For inpatients it gates discharge: a stay extended overnight for a result that could have arrived by evening costs a bed-day and a family another night. Measured consistently, TAT is also the most honest indicator of whether a laboratory is genuinely keeping up or simply working longer hours, and it is where the effect of a broken analyser or a single-shift bottleneck shows up first.

How Trisvio handles it

Trisvio records a turnaround-time expectation per test and timestamps each step of the specimen lifecycle, so the elapsed time can be read against the point it is actually measured from rather than an assumed one. Results arriving directly from an analyser land as preliminary with their provenance recorded, so the clock reflects when the result existed, not when someone got round to typing it.