Mayo
Medical Lab Executive Highlights Market Opportunities for Hospital
Laboratories
At
the Hotel Monaco in San Francisco, California last Saturday, an
intriguing line-up of lab industry experts delivered presentations
that contained some highly useful information. This Dark Daily
briefing will concentrate on several comments made by Rodney W.
Forsman. He is the Administrative Director of Outcomes at Mayo
Medical Laboratories (MML) and Associate Professor of Laboratory
Medicine at the Mayo Clinic School
of Medicine.
The event was the sixth annual Spring Fling conference, produced
by the Golden Gate Chapter of the CLMA (Clinical
Laboratory Management Association). The keynote speaker was
our own Dark Daily Editor, Robert L. Michel. In attendance was
an enthusiastic crowd of laboratory professionals from across
Northern California, along with a large number of lab industry
exhibitors.
Forsman was speaking on the subject of how community laboratories—particularly
hospital laboratories with outreach programs—could play
an important role in supporting integration of clinical services
within a region. Forsman discussed the leverage that laboratory
testing offers clinicians. After mentioning the oft-discussed
fact that lab testing costs are about 5¢ on the healthcare
dollar and play a role in as much as 70% of all clinical decisions,
he provided two insights about the use of laboratory test data
at Mayo Clinic which should be of interest to Dark Daily readers.
First, he provided a statistic about the role of laboratory testing
inside the Mayo Clinic. Forsman explained that the Mayo Clinic’s
EMR (electronic medical record) system has operated since 1995.
Laboratory test data comprises 94% of the “objective data”
within Mayo’s EMR system. This is a proportion which exceeds
the widely-noted statement that laboratory test data makes up
70% to 80% of the typical patient’s permanent health record.
Second, Forsman provided another fact about Mayo to reinforce
his point about the essential role that laboratory test data plays
within the clinical continuum. At the Mayo Clinic each day, 60,000
laboratory test results are added to the Mayo EMR. This lab test
data is in high demand, as Mayo tracks, on average, 200,000 daily
retrievals of lab test data from the system by caregivers within
the Mayo Clinic.
Forsman's major point in his remarks was to emphasize how clinical
laboratories could improve the value they offer their parent hospitals,
referring physicians, and the patients they serve in their local
community. He stressed the importance of using financial tools
and close management of laboratory resources to accomplish these
goals.
In our next Dark Daily, we will highlight insights about molecular
diagnostics shared by another nationally-recognized speaker at
the CLMA Golden Gate Chapter’s Spring Fling.
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