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Context.—Programs to track laboratory quality have reported aggregated specimen rejection rates ranging from 0.30% to 0.83%. Because the performance of the laboratory, rather than errors, has been the focus, reasons for specimen rejection or demographic characteristics of individuals at risk for specimens of poor quality may not be fully understood.

Objective.—To calculate the proportions of rejected specimens stratified by point of collections and demographic information of patients.

Design.—Retrospective cross-sectional study. Data were retrieved from the intrainstitutional electronic databases.

Results.—The proportions of specimens that were rejected in the emergency department and inpatient services were 2-fold and more than 5-fold higher, respectively, than for the outpatient services. Assessment of data by patients' ethnic heritages yielded no significant …