By Joseph Burns, from the Volume XXIII No. 5 - April 11, 2016 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Before a redesign of phlebotomy workflow at Marshfield Clinic, patients might wait as long as an hour, particularly before noon when phlebotomists would see 75% of each day’s patients. After the redesign, the number of draw sites was reduced from five to two while handling an increase in daily patient volume from 700 to 855. Patient wait times fell
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 service centers (PSC) produced a reduction in average waiting times
By R. Lewis Dark, from the Volume XVIII No. 7 - May 23, 2011 issue
STEP BY STEP, INNOVATIVE CLINICAL LABORATORIES AND PATHOLOGY GROUPS across the country are deliberately raising the level of service they provide to patients and physicians. In the short term, this often delivers competitive advantage—at least until competing laboratories improve their own service to equal that new benchmark.
Raising the bar on service is the theme of
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 Notices (ABN), leading to a 75% reduction in write-offs, worth $1 million!
In the first case, the lab
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 specimens. Collaboration among departments and the use of Lean methods produced swift results. The
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, contained unnecessary redundancies, and lacked systematic measures for preventing errors. That all changed when
By Robert Michel, from the Volume XV No. 6 - May 5, 2008 issue
CEO SUMMARY: It is always challenging to ensure consistency and high productivity across the different labs in a consolidated lab organization. To help staff focus on quality and efficiency, Alverno Clinical Laboratories LLC uses Lean methods to improve quality and timely delivery of lab results in its regional core laboratory and the labs in the
By Robert Michel, from the Volume XIII No. 8 - June 12, 2006 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Many of the nation’s more innovative laboratory organizations are paying closer attention to laboratory productivity and operational performance. To achieve improved operations, these labs are putting three tools to greater use. They are using targeted automation solutions and giving middleware a greater role in the effort to squeeze ever more productivity from every
CEO SUMMARY: As part of a major restructuring program under way at Christian Hospital in St. Louis, Laboratory Administrator Bette J. Stanley decided to apply Lean quality management methods in projects to improve work processes in phlebotomy and the chemistry department. Using internal quality consultants from the parent health system, the laboratory staff applied Lean
By Robert Michel, from the Volume XI No. 16 - November 22, 2004 issue
CEO SUMMARY: Laboratory and pathology services at Virginia Mason Medical Center are an integral part of its hospital-wide Lean quality management initiative. Because of the importance of lab test data to so many clinical services, the laboratory often finds itself making key contributions in the process improvement efforts mounted by such clinical services as the
