TAG:
process improvement
WellSpan’s Lab Designs the “Ideal” Phlebotomy
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…
Analysis of Lab Test Error Offers Lessons for Labs
CEO SUMMARY: As happens now and again, a rather typical example of an error in lab testing has made the nightly news in Indianapolis because of one justifiably irate patient who got a false positive test report for an STD. One pathologist, asked by THE DARK REPORT to assess the p…
Pennsylvania Lab Earns ISO 15189 Accreditation
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…
Using Audits to Uncover Bad Data in the Lab
CEO SUMMARY: Labs using Lean, Six Sigma, and similar quality management methods are now putting these tools to a new purpose. They are being employed to validate the accuracy of metrics designed to monitor and manage work processes directly related to turnaround times and custome…
Putting Centrifuges Into Courier Cars For Mobile Processing
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…
Pursuing More Benefits From Next Generation Lab Automation
CEO Summary: Once it was decided to replace an aging, five-year-old laboratory automation system at the laboratory of Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey, Illinois, the administration at the hospital issued a challenge. It asked the laboratory team to deliver an immediate 10% cos…
Quality Strategy Earns Honor for SD Laboratory
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…
Pap Testing in Ireland & Massachusetts
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 to Cut Pap Test TAT Pays Off At Baystate Medical
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…
Third Laboratory Earns ISO 15189 Accreditation
CEO SUMMARY: In June, the laboratory at Blanchard Valley Hospital became third in the nation to be accredited to ISO 15189:2007. The 150-bed acute facility in Findlay, Ohio, is the only hospital laboratory of its size to achieve accreditation to the ISO 15189 standard. Implementi…
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXII, No. 6 – April 21, 2025
Now that a federal judge has vacated the FDA’s LDT rule, The Dark Report analyzes the judgement and notes the various steps the FDA could take in response. Also, lab testing at pharmacies is proving to be less successful than was once anticipated.
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