Introduction:

Several pre-analytical factors affect the results of blood gases.

Objective:

To evaluate the quality of the pre-analytical process of the blood arterial analyses requested in the critical and intermediate care units of a third-level hospital institution in the city of Santiago de Cali, Colombia.

Materials and methods:

A transverse analytical study was conducted. Applications and samples taken to hospitalized patients in critical care units were assessed. Measures of central tendency, standard deviation and distribution of proportions were calculated. The medians and Kruskal-Wallis tests allowed to evaluate statistically significant differences in the management of the sample per unit of service, shift, month, week of study. The analysis was performed in Stata 15®.

Results:

The effective sample was 414, which were taken to 125 patients. On average, 4 samples a day were taken for arterial studies. 100% of applications and samples did not meet the quality and safety criteria for patient identification and 3% met the technical criteria of temperature and time.

Conclusions:

The guidelines of the Ministry of Health for patient safety and the technical standards of pre-analytical quality in arterial are not fulfilled.

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