Having a laboratory UM team is a very good idea, whether you're in a hospital system, an HMO, an academic medical center, or small independent laboratory. The primary mission of the UM team will be to:
- Address issues around inappropriate test use
- Remove or restrict tests with little clinical value
- Educate clinicians on appropriate testing
- Monitor outside test referrals
- Track the team's efforts on these initiatives
The team will also likely choose to do finite projects as well, such as create and maintain a lab formulary or create clinician lab utilization score cards. These will be discussed later in this course. Regardless of what projects or initiatives each UM team undertakes, the members of the team must be qualified, motivated, and empowered to do the hard work it takes to have an effective UM program.
