Avoiding Steep Costs

Rush Cases

Rush cases are sometimes necessary, but are costly and disruptive to the laboratory’s workflow. The analyst must stop the work in progress and store or secure the evidence in progress prior to beginning analysis on a rush case. This disrupts the batching process, whereby laboratories accumulate stains from several cases and process them simultaneously for increased efficiency. Most rush cases cannot be fit into a batch process and must be processed individually.

Due to their urgency, rush cases are closely scrutinized, requiring increased oversight and progress reporting. Many rush cases also require analysts to work overtime, increasing the overall cost of the analysis.