If you are using it, in what department of the lab?  Is it done on the LIS or in middleware?  Which LIS or middleware product?

If you are not using it, why not?  Are you thinking about it?

I used to do it in Chemistry when I worked in Canada- but that was a 1500-bed capacity hospital, so autoverifying makes sense but, for a smaller facility, manual verification should be fine. The computer screen turns yellow if there's a delta flag, it will turn red if there's a critical value and the normals will just auto-transmit but you have to check your worklist every now and then if some of the normals didn't go through- probably due to computer glitches (which is rare) but otherwise it's a pretty convenient thing for a large facility. 

I keep reading that techs are overworked pretty much everywhere.  As you say, with autoverification, the results that don't need checking "will just auto-transmit".  Wouldn't that always be a good thing to have working for you?  You don't waste time reviewing them, they get to the doctor faster and you only have to focus on the ones that really need your brainpower...may need dilution and rerun...may need redraw.....or manual diff....or microscopic exam, etc.  It seems like an obvious time-saver.  What am I missing?

You aren't missing a thing but, I think the whole software thing is kinda expensive, I might be wrong though, but that's the issue I've heard the last time.....

I have recently become aware of a relatively inexpensive solution.  Data Innovations sells middleware that, in addition to connecting instruments to the LIS, has the ability to add rules to do lots of things like autoverify, add tests to a specimen, add calculations, convert a result from numeric to alpha, route specimens to a specific instrument on an automation line, keep track of where specimens are stored and even print reports for when the LIS is down.  Many labs already have the product because it is included in the configuration of many instruments and a few LISs.  If anyone is interested, just check with Data Innovations to see if you already have their product.  It's called Instrument Manager.

I should've mentioned this earlier but it was "expensive" way back then year 1999 when I used it the first time. So I presume those softwares are pretty affordable nowadays. That's what I missed in working in a large facility as oppose to the smaller ones- you always get updates and constant evolving upgrades in running the lab but I'll never ever miss the workload!

I am a traveling med tech.  I helped implemented Middleware on my last travel assignment. So here are some of my thoughts. Depending on the size of the lab and volume auto-verifying would be beneficial.  How middleware works is just like any software program, you have to build rules to the program.  The rules for Middleware seemed to be pretty straight forward in Chemistry, Coag, and UA.  We did have a few problems with the calculations and ratios.  The process took some time to validate.  Hematology seemed to be the biggest clutch.  There were so many rules we had to build.  Even after go live, hematology still seemed to give us problems because of the complexity. 

 

Good Luck