Nov 23, 2015 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
Top-performing medical laboratories are using Lean to help craft RFPs, evaluate TLA options, then implement the automated systems to achieve optimal quality and productivity
In recent years, there’s been a big change in how clinical laboratories purchase total laboratory automation (TLA) solutions, and then integrate this automation into their lab operations. Using a strategy that is somewhat off the radar, top-performing medical laboratories will purchase and install TLA only after applying the principles of Lean to the physical layout and overall workflow within their labs.
This development demonstrates the growing acceptance of Lean, Six Sigma, and continuous process improvement methods at hospital-based laboratories and independent clinical laboratories.
As lab budgets get squeezed down each year and specimen volume increases, pathologists and clinical lab managers face the twin challenges of reducing costs while increasing the quality of their lab testing services. (more…)
Apr 24, 2013 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Manhattan Labs is an early-adopter of the trend toward increased use of lab-specific CRM solutions with the goal of gaining competitive advantage
To improve its competitive position in the tough clinical laboratory testing market of New York City, one medical laboratory company has implemented a cloud-based, lab-specific customer relationship management (CRM) service that delivers real-time information to its sales team in the field and its operations team in the lab.
This is consistent with an important trend gathering momentum within the clinical laboratory industry. That trend is the use of middleware and similar informatics solutions that serve up detailed information about the performance and operation of the lab in real time. Typically, these informatics solutions support real-time management dashboards.
Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers recognize that good client relations can be the difference between retaining and losing clients—and the revenue associated with their medical laboratory test referrals.
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Aug 3, 2011 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Both the clinical laboratory and the pathology laboratory have cut TAT and error rates
It is perfect irony that the Department of Pathology and Clinical Laboratory Medicine at the Henry Ford Health System is among the most effective Lean practitioners in the world of medical laboratory testing. That’s because Lean techniques were developed by Toyota Motor Corporation, which itself based its Lean management methods on its study of Henry Ford’s groundbreaking innovations at his auto manufacturing plant in Detroit.
Thus, the current use of Lean methods at the clinical laboratory at Henry Ford Health System means that these management tools have come full circle. Today, the laboratory at the hospital in Detroit that bears Ford’s name has adopted methods used in auto manufacturing to improve the lab’s processes.
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