TAG:
lean method
WellSpan’s Lab Designs the “Ideal” Phlebotomy
By Robert Michel | From the Volume XVIII No. 7 – May 23, 2011 Issue
CEO SUMMARY: Lengthy wait times for patients at phlebotomy sites is a common problem for labs across the country. But the laboratory at WellSpan Health System in York, Pennsylvania decided to apply Lean methods to change this situation. Their Lean projects at two pilot patient se…
Pennsylvania Lab Earns ISO 15189 Accreditation
By Robert Michel | From the Volume XVIII No. 3 – February 28, 2011 Issue
CEO SUMMARY: Clinical laboratories often promote themselves as being able to deliver quality results. But simply saying so is not the same as having an outside organization audit the laboratory to accredit its analytical processes and its other operational activities. NMS Labs in Willow G…
Putting Centrifuges Into Courier Cars For Mobile Processing
By Robert Michel | From the Volume XVIII No. 2 – February 7, 2011 Issue
CEO SUMMARY: To improve the quality of lab services it provides to more than 300 skilled nursing facilities (SNF) while reducing costs, MuirLab of Concord, California, has created a “mobile specimen processing” solution. It operates a fleet of courier cars with centr…
Quality Strategy Earns Honor for SD Laboratory
By Robert Michel | From the Volume XVII No. 14 – October 4, 2010 Issue
CEO SUMMARY: Here’s a new lab product launch with a surprise twist. Upon earning FDA clearance for its new HIV Ag/Ab Combo Assay this spring, Abbott Diagnostics selected a hospital laboratory in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to be the nation’s first clinical lab to offer the ass…
New Clinical Lab Trends To Shape Events in 2010
By Robert Michel | From the Volume XVII No. 1 – January 4, 2010 Issue
CEO SUMMARY: In presenting this list of macro trends for clinical laboratories, several themes are in play. They range from a continued emphasis on improving lab operations to the need to acquire and deploy sophisticated information technology. During the next few years, the long…
Using Lean to Cut Pap Test TAT Pays Off At Baystate Medical
By Robert Michel | From the Volume XVI No. 12 – August 31, 2009 Issue
USE OF LEAN METHODS HAS UNLOCKED major improvements at Baystate Health’s Department of Pathology in Springfield, Massachusetts. One Lean project cut average Pap test turnaround time by more than 50%. Another Lean project attacked errors with Advanced Beneficiary No…
Pap Testing in Ireland & Massachusetts
By R. Lewis Dark | From the Volume XVI No. 12 – August 31, 2009 Issue
IT IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL that, in this issue, you will read intelligence briefings about Pap testing in Ireland (see pages 3-5) and Massachusetts (see pages 10-15). Yet, both stories, taken together, send an important message to laboratory executives and pathologists. Because of ongoing evolution i…
Using Lean at Henry Ford Transforms Pathology TAT
By Robert Michel | From the Volume XVI No. 11 – August 10, 2009 Issue
CEO SUMMARY: Long-standing work flow traditions in anatomic pathology provide fertile ground for improvement with Lean and similar process improvement methods. That was the case at Henry Ford Health System, where empowered teams in the pathology laboratory employed the principles…
Boston’s Beth Israel Scores Improvement Gains with Lean
By Robert Michel | From the Volume XVI No. 4 – March 16, 2009 Issue
CEO Summary: Lean methods are helping laboratories resolve aggravating problems that have been unresolvable for as long as 10 years. At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, improvement teams involving the laboratory and ED staff addressed high rates of hemolyzed specim…
Cytology Lab Uses Lean to Simplify Processes
By Robert Michel | From the Volume XV No. 15 – November 10, 2008 Issue
CEO SUMMARY: Like many labs today, the gynecologic cytology laboratory at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics had a pre- and post-analytical work flow with many complex steps. This work flow—heavily influenced by a legacy of previous information systems—was inefficient, conta…
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Volume XXXII, No. 4 – March 10, 2025
A bold new technology has entered the European lab marketplace, with the introduction of an autonomous robotic phlebotomy device, already in service at a Netherlands hospital. Also, The Dark Report announces its sale to LabX Media Group of Ontario Canada.
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