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.
Labs In United Kingdom Study U.S., Canadian Labs
CEO SUMMARY: It was a groundbreaking first for both sides of the Atlantic. Senior pathologists and laboratory directors in the United Kingdom spent two days learning from their North American counterparts about the challenges and difficulties in laboratory consolidation and regionalizatio…
Dade Behring Primed To Become Public Firm
CEO SUMMARY: Dade Behring is executing an ambitious plan to restructure its finances and become a public company. To reduce its debt burden, Dade’s three owners are giving up their stock. Banks and bondholders will swap a portion of their debt for shares of stock in Dade. Once the finan…
Specialty Laboratories’ New CEO Reveals How His Company Is Changing
“You will see a more tightly focused Specialty Labs. We won’t try and do everything, rather we will do what is important for our customers.” —Douglas S. Harrington, M.D CEO SUMMARY: In recent months, several events roiled the market for hos…
Two Major Hospital Systems First to Join Leapfrog Group
EXPERTS CONSIDER THE DECISION of two major hospital systems to join the Leapfrog Group to be a significant boost to the group’s effort to improve patient safety. HCA, Inc. of Nashville, Tennessee and Promina Health System of Atlanta are the first …
United Kingdom Soon to Tackle Consolidation of Hospital Labs
CEO SUMMARY: Consolidation and regionalization of hospital laboratory testing are not isolated phenomenons. Beginning in the late 1980s, individual provinces in Canada began to rationalize lab testing services by building core labs and consolidating lab services across multiple hospitals….
Employers Ready To Push Hospitals, Docs On Quality
FOR THE SECOND TIME THIS YEAR, an influential group of large employers has publicly declared its intent to push hospitals and physicians to do more to improve the cost and quality of healthcare. On June 10, the Midwest Business Group declared that it was time for companies to “cra…
Hospitalwide ISO-9002 Status Stimulates Gains In Laboratory
AFTER 181-bed St. Charles Medical Center became one of a handful of hospitals in the United States to earn its certification as an ISO-9000 facility three years ago, interaction between nursing and the laboratory has improved in unexpected ways. Located in the central Oregon communi…
Vaccine Shortage Is Result Of Economic Disincentives
RECENT PUBLICITY about the nationwide shortage of vaccines makes it timely to remind laboratory executives and pathologists about the important role that economics plays in providing goods and services to the healthcare marketplace. After all, good management strategy must incorporate an accurate as…
Shortage of Med Techs Stimulates Innovation
CEO SUMMARY: In Western Tennessee, a seven-hospital rural health system is pulling out all stops to solve the staffing crisis in its laboratory division by implementing programs that address both retention and recruiting. “Bench bonuses,” college loan repayment programs, recruitment b…
Largest Hospital Lab JV Making Steady Progress
CEO SUMMARY: It’s a daunting task to rationalize and integrate lab testing services among 21 hospitals spread out between Eastern Wisconsin and the south side of Chicago. Since the joint venture was announced April 2000, management initiatives have generated lower costs. But the number …
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXII, No. 14 – October 6, 2025
The Dark Report examines increasing healthcare costs for employers and how clinical labs can help those employers. Also, an in-depth case study shows how one hospital system regained its outreach program after originally ceding it to a national lab company, adding millions to the system’s bottom line.
See the full table of contentsHow Much Laboratory Business Intelligence Have You Missed?
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