Assessing competence in finding and reporting abnormal morphologic features while scanning peripheral blood smears.
OBJECTIVE: To develop a competency assessment tool to determine if technologists are detecting and reporting clinically significant findings on blood smears and to identify if proficiency improves through education using a video presentation. DESIGN: Combination of nonequivalent pretest-post test control group and modified time-series design. SETTING: A large medical center in Southern Louisiana. PARTICIPANTS: All shifts of technologists working in the Core Hematology and Special Hematology Laboratories. This sample is a nonprobability sample of convenience. INTERVENTION: A thirty-five minute videotape on the standardization of RBC morphology. MAIN OUTCOMES MEASURE: Develop a method for measuring competency of technologists who perform scans of peripheral blood smears as part of the automated white blood count differential process.