News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Hosted by Robert Michel

News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Hosted by Robert Michel
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Innovative Clinical Pathology Laboratories Raise Analytical Test Quality with Lean and Process Improvement

Lab Quality Confab showcases the next paradigm shift for clinical laboratory QA/QC

Can Lean, Six Sigma, and process improvement techniques measurably improve the quality of analytical test results produced by clinical pathology laboratories? A handful of innovative pathologists and laboratory scientists say the answer is “yes”!

The outcomes from their pioneering efforts to deliberately attack and improve the quality of the analytical test results in their medical laboratories provide early evidence that Lean, Six Sigma, and similar performance improvement methods can play a role in reducing patient risk while significantly increasing the analytical integrity of the lab tests produced by their organizations.

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Laboratory Transforms Manual Urinalysis with Automation and More

Pre-analytical products, automated systems, and Lean Six Sigma combined to improve outcomes

In today’s era of automation and Lean Six Sigma processes in laboratory medicine, the manual urinalysis test may be ready for a major makeover. Such a development would be welcome because, in the typical American hospital, the clinical laboratory performs an average of 120 urinalyses per day.

Some clinical laboratory managers consider it counterintuitive that—during a period of automation and implementation of Lean Six Sigma processes—a diagnostic tool as important and ubiquitous as urinalysis would not be perfectly methodized. But that is frequently the case. In many clinical laboratories, the processes utilized for this line of lab tests are often outmoded, inefficient, and can even lead to erroneous results.

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