Laboratory Management
Laboratory management in today’s clinical lab industry is changing rapidly and facing entirely new challenges. One problem is the lack of upcoming younger lab managers, as the retirements of baby boomer pathologists, medical technologists and lab scientists are in the near future. These individuals make up the largest proportion of supervisors, managers, and lab administrators working in labs today.
As they retire, every clinical lab and pathology group needs to have the next generation of leaders ready to step up and assume responsibilities. But, across the lab industry, there are limited opportunities for every lab’s brightest up-and-comers to get the regular management development opportunities that are common among Fortune 500 companies. The Dark Intelligence Group has called for the establishment of a mentoring program to help overcome this problem.
At the same time, downward pressure on reimbursements and mounting competition have created an environment that requires much more effort for a medical lab to grow and thrive.
Legislation, including the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) of 2009 and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010, have placed significant demands on medical laboratories and healthcare providers to improve internal efficiency even while offering more services for less money. This pressure to “do more with less” is further compounded by the need to deliver increasingly personalized client service to retain and win clients.
With the era of fee-for-service medicine coming to a close, every clinical laboratory and anatomic pathology organization needs a strategy for getting paid, as new reimbursement models that support patient-centric care will make up a larger portion of lab revenues.
The challenge for every clinical laboratory manager is to understand how to evolve from a business model that is accession-centric or volume-centric to one that is patient-centric.
Many clinical laboratories today are developing data repositories to logically link all transactional and other information about a patient. These repositories allow physicians to see all relevant information, identify trends, and provide better care as a result, enabling labs to provide greater value to their customers, patients and payers, thus creating more value and becoming more patient-centric.
Lab News Briefs: Joint Commission, Bon Secours, Anthem, Walmart
Joint Commission Looks at Cyberattacks The Joint Commission issued a Sentinel Event Alert for hospitals to address cyberattacks. The alert pr…
Guerrilla Kaizen Events Bring Rapid Change and Cost Savings
CEO SUMMARY: Lean Six Sigma principles are familiar to clinical laboratory and pathology leaders. But a lesser-known offshoot called “guerrilla Kaizen” aims to rapidly identify inefficiencies an…
Lab News Briefs: Labcorp, Tufts, Informa, HIMSS, Sanford, Fairview
Labcorp Buys Tufts’ Lab Outreach IN OUR LAST ISSUE, WE REPORTED THAT LABCORP HAD ACQUIRED the lab outreach services of two health systems in…
Hospital Lab Outreach Selloffs Continue with Labcorp as Buyer
OVER THE LAST FEW MONTHS, Labcorp has shaken up the hospital laboratory market in the Pacific Northwest, particularly as it concerns lab outreach services. …
Competency Assessments Prove To Be a Nagging CLIA Deficiency
CEO SUMMARY: Competency assessment problems rank high among frequently cited deficiencies during CLIA inspections. Representatives from the CAP, COLA, and The Joint Commission explain what areas to…
HCCI Reports Higher Prices for Hospital Outreach Tests
CEO SUMMARY: It’s another shot across the bows to hospital and health systems that use inpatient test prices when billing health insurers for outpatient/outreach lab tests. In its report, the Health Care Cost Institute documents how these hospital l…
Dartmouth Health Lab Recruits and Trains More CLSs
CEO SUMMARY: Keeping clinical laboratories fully staffed may be the single biggest issue confronting labs today. In New Hampshire, the lab team at Dartmouth Health crafted an innovative program that pays students as they pursue their clinical laboratory scientist certification. In…
Atrium Health’s Advice on Epic Beaker Rollouts
CEO SUMMARY: Starting in 2019, Atrium Health began a years-long process to implement Epic Beaker as its laboratory information system. It was an enormous effort, involving dozens of locations across three s…
CMS: TJC Made ‘Business Decision’ to Not Recognize COLA
Following up on a prior briefing, The Dark Report has learned that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) does not appear to hav…
Data Analytics Improves Lab Productivity, Turnaround Time
CEO SUMMARY: An increased ability to analyze internal diagnostic data helped MultiCare Health System improve laboratory test turnaround times in real time and more efficiently staff i…
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXI, No. 5 – April 8, 2024
The fragmentation of consumer markets is reflected in clinical lab services, and The Dark Report examines this trend and how it will impact labs in the coming years. Also, The Dark Report notes that the FDA has issued a controversial memo to reclassify many high-risk IVD assays.
See the full table of contentsHow Much Laboratory Business Intelligence Have You Missed?
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