A voided urine collected in a physician's office is delivered to the Microbiology department on Monday at 9:00 a.m. The collection date and time is recorded as Friday 4:20 p.m. You call the physician's office to verify. Her nurse verifies the collection date and time as correct. She explains the specimen was missed by the courier on Friday but she refrigerated it until the next scheduled pickup on Monday morning. You will

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Requesting a recollect is the most appropriate action because the specimen was not processed within an acceptable timeframe for a urine culture, which can affect the accuracy of the results. Urine specimens for culture should ideally be processed within 2 hours of collection or refrigerated if there's a delay, but even with refrigeration, a delay from Friday until Monday exceeds recommended guidelines for urine specimen storage before culturing.

A Voided Urine Collected in a Physician's Office Is Delivered