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Change is the key word at Sarasota Memorial Hospital & Healthcare System's (SMH's) laboratories. The sentiment is reflected in a colorful 'Who Moved My Cheese?' poster on Anne Beall's door. [...]

Point-of-care testing has not spread as aggressively through the British hospital system as it has in the United States. The United Kingdom's National Health Service is slow to make changes and laboratories are resistant to decentralization. Where point-of-care testing is used is poorly regulated and there is no quality control in place.

Critical care nurses and hospital laboratories should work together to create a point-of-care testing system. A point-of-care system often creates more work for nurses, but gets them the results they need. It is the laboratory's responsibility to maintain equipment and monitor results for quality.

Before implementing a point-of -care testing program, hospitals should determine do a cost-benefit analysis and and learn regulations and licensing requirements. Personnel who will be performing the tests should be trained and tested for competency. Once in place quality of work, efficiency and record keeping should be examined.

Laboratories in sparsely populated pockets of the world, from the spacecraft Challenger to our modest medical center in Plattsburgh, NY, employ talented individuals to work in physically demanding environments. Rural [...]

Hospitals in Ontario are almost completely dependent for their finances on transfer payments from the provincial government. Before the late 1980s, public funding for hospitals was fairly stable. For several [...]

Lacking standardized information, each lab consortium that has sprouted has tended to reinvent the wheel. When pondering a regional network, consider these examples of what has worked for others. Final [...]

The author's research and enterprise in ordering tests from referral labs have delighted doctors and expanded test volume. Seven years ago, when my children were entering school, I decided to [...]

The cycle of testing in the clinical laboratory is a loop. It opens with a test order placed by a physician and closes with the presentation of the result. Many [...]

In 1993, The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston undertook a change management initiative to achieve a more cost-competitive position in its market and become a more attractive [...]

A phlebotomy team, a tube system, a new chemistry analyzer, and end-of-shift maintenance and QC made all the difference in this hospital lab's chemistry turnaround time. To operate a customer-focused [...]

Technologist troubled over manager's clowning around Q Our lab manager loves to indulge in practical jokes and horseplay during work hours. While our staff doesn't seem to mind his crude [...]

What happens when a customer wants something that seems difficult, if not impossible, to provide? Sometimes before solutions surface, everyone must be willing to change the status quo. CENTRAL DUPAGE [...]

After logging in 12 years of experience throughout the clinical laboratory, I was a seriously bored medical technologist. Filling a newly created slot as head of the development lab within [...]

The recent publication of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on medical errors has once again raised the issue of quality of care in the health professions (Kohn, Corrigan, and [...]

Here's how 2 Ontario hospital laboratories and their staff members got a crash course in consolidation--and survived the transition without slighting patient care. In the past decade, consolidation of laboratory [...]

Plan, prepare for disasters Q I recently moved to Florida, an area that has had a few close calls (and direct hits) with some scary storms. What do you suggest [...]

Lab directors seek adequate resources to do their job, and administrators seek support in expanding hospital business while holding down costs. The author, a member of MLO's Editorial Advisory Board, [...]

Management at all levels must cooperate in dealing with the impact of economics, new technology, and quality assurance. The author, a member of MLO's Editorial Advisory Board, is vice president [...]

Anatomy of a lab transition: Retaking in-house control In 1973, Hahnemann University Hospital became the first university medical center to have a reference lab run its clinical laboratories. Thirteen years [...]

Reducing blood outdating: An incentive program saves a shrinking resource In 1985, the transfusion service at our 700-bed tertiary-care hospital received a challenge from its blood supplier: If blood outdating [...]

Lab design that counts Labor, not equipment, is the economic force driving clinical labs today. This, according to James Sharp, M.D., assciate pathologist at Northwest Community Hospital, Arlington Heights, IL. [...]

Unity Health is expected to save $3.8 million a year on laboratory costs by 2002, after it completes a reorganization of hospital lab services. Lab services are being reorganized into [...]

Like it or not, major changes in the delivery of lab services are coming. When they will arrive is debatable, but one thing is certain: They will have an impact [...]

Alternate-site testing: Adjusting to a new trend They crop up in even the smallest institutions and go by various names--labs that we call off site, alternate site, ancillary, satellite, or [...]

Management ideas for 1991 My job takes me across the country to serve as a consultant and present workshops and seminars. My services help laboratory management improve their operations and [...]

A look back at the '80s The '80s - no other decade has delivered a more resounding punch to health care services. Three major issues, evolving at different times, have [...]

Hospitals plunge into the drug testing market Drug testing is in style--at least among corporate managers--and hospitals are caught up in the trend. Hospital administrators are scrambling to determine where [...]

Those of us who have always worked in the United States tend to have a parochial view of our operations versus those in other countries. We believe our systems are [...]

Time to end the lab leadership controversy The question of who should be the director of a clinical laboratory has been a major issue for as long as I have [...]

Quick-why is a laboratory manager like a sandwich cookie'? Answer: Both tend to get stuck in the middle. By its nature, middle management represents the position in which most of [...]

While they employ basically identical instrumentation, techniques, and personnel, the worlds of independent and hospital laboratories can be vastly different. With the possible exception of pharmacy, I can't think of [...]