5 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR LAB’S TURN AROUND TIME TODAY

Independent laboratories have made a name and created a mark for themselves. Pathology is no longer a subset in a hospital. It is a huge task in itself generating significant revenues thanks to growing health awareness among the general population about the importance of routine health checks. From the smallest to the largest and most sophisticated centers, diseases across the country are playing a significant role in patient care decisions, as well as the commercial dynamics.

The key to having a well-kept and secure patient medical decisions at the right time and that today depends entirely on the test reports reaching your doctor as soon as possible. The writing on the wall is loud and clear - diseases with higher volume, higher efficiency and faster delivery of reports will earn at most. Not only money, but also a base trusted patient, which again it translates into money, of course. Each pathologist out there will manage the volume and efficiency, but what makes the difference is the fastest delivery report - the turnaround time (TAT). This factor has and will affect the way health dynamics work unimaginable.

They bring you 5 ideas to improve TAT and gain a competitive advantage on your side:

1. Double bench

The work space in pathology can have a central workbench dedicated to archiving of samples. Furthermore, delivered containing samples can be color-coded to identify whether it is a single sample or a shared. Both of these changes will help reduce wastage of time in searching for shared standards, which in turn will lead to an efficient use of manpower thus accelerate the entire process and positively influence TAT. Also, having a central automation system for your entire laboratory, can greatly improve the TAT.

2. Pre-analytical Check Point

A single point but extremely efficient pre-analytical control can be set up and made part of SOP's to be followed before the actual pathological test. This will greatly help to avoid wrong test results due to human error as well as help in reducing the time wasted on the wrong samples.

3. Auto validation

The list of tests that can be validated by virtue of the fact that they were carried out on well calibrated car automated tools should be on the upper side. More tests should be added to this list several times. Auto-approval helps to reduce dependency on a single pathologist or group of pathologists to validate each test performed on the disease which increases the time efficiency in reporting the test results.

4. Multitasking training for staff

If TAT is to be maintained, management of staff shortages from time to time needs to be addressed elegantly. Majority of staff training to perform tests of various sections in pathology would help to reduce overtime costs for the hospital as well as cover up for the shortage of staff efficiently.

5. Pneumatic tube system to sample transport

You cannot test a sample without obtaining a sample. The key factor in the pathology that Tat is the time spent in transport of samples from the bedside to the disease. Use of pneumatic tube systems for sample transport ensures safe and fast transportation of the samples. The fastest of the samples reach the technician will be the fastest delivery time.

There have been cases in which the physician consultants prefer to get tests done by a disease not related to the hospital simply because the reports are only 15 minutes faster. But 15 minutes compared to human health can be crucial to patient outcomes.

Always remember the higher volume, higher efficiency and faster delivery of reports. Delivery result is important but the timing is crucial, especially when it comes to health care. So improve your tattoo to improve your revenue.

All these measures can be quite simple when your lab is automated. The laboratory automation at the end of the day streamlines operations, removes inefficiencies and significantly improves TAT.