Free guidePDF · 103 pages · 100-minute read

Where Did the Other 44 Hours Go? Finding and Reducing Laboratory Turnaround Time

A free 103-page LabLynx guide to laboratory turnaround time, from sample receipt to final report, and how to find and get back the hours lost in between.

Published September 2026

Where Did the Other 44 Hours Go?, a free LabLynx guide to laboratory turnaround time

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Laboratory turnaround time is the time from one agreed moment in a sample's life to another, usually from receipt to the moment the customer has the result. This LabLynx guide shows that it is testing time plus everything between the steps, and teaches labs to split it into work, waiting and rework, find the largest gaps and get the lost hours back.

What you will learn

Where the time really goes. The test is usually the small part; most of the rest is waiting between steps.
How to measure turnaround honestly. Nine timestamps, a written start and stop, and the median and 90th percentile instead of the average.
Six names for lost time. The TAT Loss Map: queue, handoff, information, processing, exception and review loss.
Which fixes have measured effects. Published fixes, each matched to the kind of lost time it removes, and the ones that bought little.
How to find your own lost hours. A timestamp exercise with 10 to 20 samples, a 90-day plan and five printable worksheets.

What is inside the guide

From the receiving bench to the customer's inbox, and every hour in between: here is what the guide covers.

Turnaround time is more than testing time
If the test takes four hours but the result takes two days, the question is where the other 44 hours went. In published studies the test was often the small part: 20 minutes of a 92-minute wait in one emergency department. Turnaround time is testing time plus everything that happens between the steps.
Go deeper: The high cost of a slow lab
Whose clock?
Every turnaround number runs between two moments, and the lab, the customer and the regulator often choose different ones. Most rulebooks ask for timely results and leave the number to the lab. The guide names nine timestamps, from Received to Delivered, and shows how to write a target: X% within Y, from A to B.
Read the spread, not the average
Most samples finish near the fast end and a few trail far behind, so the average describes almost none of them. Report the median for the normal day, the 90th percentile for the bad day and the share within target, and read the late samples one by one.
Work, wait, rework
Every hour of turnaround is work, waiting or rework, and of the work the guide asks one more question: is it necessary? Waiting grows faster and faster as people and instruments get busier, and the calendar, with its nights, weekends and worklists, is often the biggest queue.
The TAT Loss Map
Lost time comes in six kinds: queue, handoff, information, processing, exception and review loss. Each shows up in particular gaps between timestamps and needs its own family of fixes, so "we are too slow" becomes "most of our lost time is review loss".
Receipt and assignment
The front door is fast work surrounded by long waits, and most turnaround reports start too late to see them. Record the received time when the sample arrives, decide in advance which missing fields stop work, and assign at login so a sample does not lose a night waiting for the next worklist.
Go deeper: Chain of custody for environmental labs
The queue, the analysis and the exceptions
The analysis is the part labs understand best, and the queue in front of it is the part that grows. Copying results between systems is work nobody needs and it breeds errors, and every exception needs someone who notices, someone who is told and someone who decides.
Go deeper: Why instrument integration breaks in year two
Review and approval
Testing complete is not a result: the wait for a signature can be most of the turnaround. Give review a fixed slot placed just after results arrive, push the pending list every day, spread the reviewer role, and let tested rules release the results that pass.
Reporting and delivery
The clock stops when the customer has the result, and signed, sent, received and read are different moments. Build the report from the record, choose the fastest channel the customer can receive, and confirm urgent results instead of assuming they arrived.
Go deeper: Laboratory reporting
Find your lost time and get it back
Rebuild nine timestamps for 10 to 20 recent samples, find the largest gaps before you ask why, and match each fix to the loss it removes. In the published studies the big gains attacked waiting, so try the cheap fixes first and measure again: the bottleneck moves.
Go deeper: Dashboards and data visualization for lab decisions

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Key takeaways

Turnaround time is more than testing time. It is testing time plus everything that happens between the steps.
Split it three ways. Every hour is work, waiting or rework; the target is the time in which nothing useful is happening to the sample.
Read the spread, not the average. Use the median for the normal day, the 90th percentile for the bad day, and look at every late sample one by one.
Name the lost time. Queue, handoff, information, processing, exception and review loss each need their own family of fixes.
Fix the delay you found. Aim each fix, and any automation, at the largest gap, then measure again: the bottleneck moves.

The timestamp exercise in six steps

Pick 10 to 20 recent samples. Include some that missed their target and a few ordinary ones.
Rebuild the nine timestamps. From Received to Delivered, using the lab's system, instrument files, emails and paper.
Check that the times run in order. Missing and backwards times are a finding in themselves.
Work out each sample's own gaps. Summarize only after that, and never add up medians.
Name the loss in each gap. Ask what the sample was waiting for.
Find the largest gaps before you ask why. Then fix the biggest one and measure again.

This page is the summary. The full guide has the detail, all 103 pages of it.

PDF · 103 pages · 100-minute read. Free.

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Who it is for

Lab managers and directors

who are asked "where is my result?" and decide where the lab's time and money go.

Quality and compliance leads

who own review, approval and the clock the lab reports to its customers.

Scientists, technicians and the people who run the lab's data

who live with the queues every day and hold the timestamps that show where the hours go.

Written for Testing labs of every kind: clinical and public health, environmental, food, pharmaceutical and manufacturing quality control, forensic and research labs.

Put it into practiceGet started with LabLynxOnce you have rebuilt your timestamps and found your largest gap, bring your timestamp sheet or gap tally to LabLynx, even half finished, and talk through which gap is worth closing first. Ask for personalized information, a demo or pricing.Talk to a LabLynx specialist

About the guide

Answers from the guide, in brief.

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Why does the guide say a lab can have fast testing and slow turnaround?

Because the test is often the small part. In one US emergency department, a urine test spent a median of 20 minutes in the lab but took 92 minutes from order to result. A London hospital network waited an average of 11.6 days for a test that a reference lab turned around in under 24 hours. Turnaround time is testing time plus everything that happens between the steps.

What does the guide mean by work, wait and rework?

Every hour of turnaround is one of three kinds. Work time is someone or something doing necessary work on the sample, including a culture growing or an instrument running with nobody in the room. Wait time is when the sample is ready for its next step and nothing is happening. Rework time is doing it again: a rerun, a correction, a typo fixed. The guide goes after the waiting first.

How does the guide recommend reporting turnaround time?

Never with the average alone, because turnaround has a long right tail. Report the median for the normal day, the 90th percentile for the bad day and the share within target, look week by week, and read every late sample one by one. In figures from 14 crime labs, firearms cases took 136 days on average, while the case in the middle took 58.

What are the six kinds of lost time in the guide's TAT Loss Map?

Queue loss: work waiting for a person, an instrument, a batch or the lab to open. Handoff loss: waiting to move between people, benches, labs or systems. Information loss: waiting for an answer. Processing loss: a step slower than it needs to be. Exception loss: the normal flow stopped. Review loss: finished results waiting to be checked or released. Each shows up in particular gaps between timestamps.

Why does the guide warn against buying a faster instrument first?

A faster step helps only if samples are waiting for it. One hospital lab removed a 20-minute step and its slowest results got only two to four minutes faster; tubes often sat on a counter while staff did other work. A fully automated line saved about an hour, yet samples that arrived at a weekend still took 66.8 hours to reach a final report. Find the queue first.

Where does the guide suggest a lab start?

With the timestamp exercise. Pick 10 to 20 recent samples, including some that missed their target, and rebuild nine timestamps for each, from Received to Delivered. Work out each sample's own gaps, name the loss in each, and find the largest gaps before asking why. Then fix the biggest gap with the cheapest fix and measure again, within a 90-day plan.

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