Understanding the Challenges

Healthcare executives and providers understand the importance of the diagnostic laboratory to patient care—as many as 70% of clinical decisions are based on diagnostic laboratory results; strategies to improve efficiency and diagnoses must be promoted.^1,2 The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) cut reimbursements overall and for specific tests. In addition, approximately 5,000 students graduate yearly from accredited medical laboratory science programs, yet there are 24,000 annual vacancies. Health centers are seeing increasing patient loads requiring more testing. There is a constant need to improve diagnostic accuracy, expand test menus, and, at the same time, process workloads faster. In addition, labor costs represent the most significant portion of diagnostic laboratory budgets; labor costs continue to grow as the declining number of skilled workers request greater pay.

Diagnostic laboratories need to improve workforce productivity to address all of this. Investing in modern equipment and management technology is helpful but expensive, and the return on investment for small to medium-sized facilities may not be reasonable. This course will address six main factors that will address the challenges.