Clinical diagnostic testing is an interaction of people and technology performing complex critical tasks in a fast-moving, high-stress environment. Studies suggest that as much as 35% of hospital staff time is spent on wasteful work that adds no value to patients.6 Management's responsibility is to implement a smooth, seamless structure to see diagnostic testing progress from the initial order to the final report. If there are glitches and clogs in this process, productivity and provider and patient satisfaction will be reduced. Managing people, automation and equipment, materials, environment, and the process is challenging. Below are seven steps management can take to increase laboratory efficiency.
- Eliminate waste: Waste does not add value to your work. Some examples of waste are underutilized talent, non-approachable leadership, training failures, extra processing errors, expiration of materials, equipment failures (lack of maintenance), and poor quality management processes. Entire books have been written about how to manage the laboratory effectively, and because each laboratory is unique, a detailed management discussion will not be discussed in this course.
- Empower your team: Management can empower their team to become waste eliminators. Provide incentives to team members to find and eliminate waste.
- Organize your laboratory: One helpful process is implementing 5S in the laboratory. 5S is a Japanese methodology that organizes and improves the efficiency of a shared workspace by incorporating seemingly regular tasks such as cleaning, sorting, and re-arranging the surroundings and methods of operation within the workspace. 5S consists of five phases or activities with names starting with the letter "S" (sort, set in order, shine, standardize, sustain) and provides a basic foundation for any organization's Lean initiative for continuous improvement.7
- Track problems by creating a problem tracker system that records problems as they occur and provides solutions. This information can be used to prevent future issues or provide ready-made solutions.
- Manage information with a laboratory information management system (LIMS) that tracks your samples and standardizes your protocols. Tracking samples with LIMS from collection through the testing and reporting process eliminates transcription errors, decreases turnaround time, and provides consistency.
- Maintenance: Calibrate instruments and perform preventive maintenance regularly.
- Automate your processes to improve speed, accuracy, precision, reproducibility, and reduce failures.
