Sep 8, 2014 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, News From Dark Daily
Blame it on shrinking hospital budgets and reduced lab testing prices; successful labs are using Lean, Six Sigma, and process improvement to reduce expenses and boost quality
Topic number one at clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups across the nation is cost-cutting, for two reasons. First, it is budget time at hospitals and labs are being told to aggressively reduce their costs in 2015. Second, health insurers are paying less for medical lab testing.
Simply said, labs are experiencing one of the toughest financial squeezes in two decades. Dark Daily has written about the underlying trends responsible for this financial pressure. Nationally, hospital inpatient admissions are down at the same time that hospitals are being paid less per inpatient. In response, hospitals are asking all clinical departments—including their clinical laboratories—to prune staff and cut budgets for 2015. (more…)
Nov 3, 2010 | Laboratory Pathology, News From Dark Daily
Quality management systems (QMS) attracts plenty of attention on day one of this conference
DATELINE: San Antonio, Texas—ISO 15189 Medical Laboratories was clearly a hot topic yesterday at the Fourth Annual Lab Quality Confab and Process Improvement Institute. Almost every session devoted to quality management systems (QMS) and ISO 15189 had a standing-room-only audience.
Here in San Antonio, about 250 clinical laboratory managers and pathologists from several different countries have gathered to learn innovative ways to use Lean, Six Sigma, and similar process improvement methods in their laboratories. Day one was marked by high-energy networking and the Lean Six Sigma case studies that demonstrate the power of these performance improvement projects to deliver major gains in turnaround times and staff productivity while reducing errors and lowering costs.
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