How Your Lab Can Deliver More Value
from Lab Data: Lessons from Innovative
Labs on Internal and External Successes
with Lab Test Utilization and Improved
Clinical Outcomes
Order Live Webinar Recordings Now!
Every clinical lab and pathology group needs to prepare to move
beyond fee-for-service payment by delivering high-value lab services
that improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs
Today, across the nation, managers in a handful of first-mover clinical labs and pathology groups are taking determined action to counter the disturbing fall in lab tests prices by boosting the value of the diagnostic services they deliver to parent hospitals, to physicians, and to health insurers.
These labs are motivated by the fact that fee-for-service reimbursement is already in decline. Their managers recognize the need to act in two dimensions to convert standard lab data into opportunities to improve patient outcomes while reducing costs by a substantial amount. One dimension is an “inside the lab” focus to cut costs while improving quality. The other dimension is to go “outside the lab” to collaborate with other clinical services in ways that boost patient care while cutting the overall cost of care.
You have a proven path to follow, whether your priority is to immediately implement projects to intelligently cut costs within your lab—or to go outside the lab and collaborate with other clinical services to directly improve patient outcomes because your lab team is delivering enriched, high-value information to your physician-clients. To provide you with actionable steps your laboratory can take right away, and to help you begin active engagement between your lab and your physician and healthcare business partners, The Dark Report is offering a special webinar titled “How Your Lab Can Deliver More Value from Lab Data: Lessons from Innovative Labs on Internal and External Successes with Lab Test Utilization and Improved Clinical Outcomes.” This 90-minute webinar will take place on Thursday, July 23, at 1 PM EDT.
Learn about “outside the lab” initiatives designed
to foster collaboration between lab staff and clinicians
Your first presenters on this special webinar are Bradley Brimhall, M.D., Professor of Pathology and Internal Medicine, and Senior Consultant, Enterprise Data Warehouse and Integrated Medical Analytics at the University of Mississippi Health Care System, and his colleague, Bryan Clements, Director of Decision Support at the UMMC in Jackson. They will discuss their “outside the lab” initiatives that are designed to foster effective collaboration between lab staff and clinicians.
You’ll learn the details of an early collaboration with physicians— a simple project to put duplicate test order alerts into the electronic ordering system. In its first full year, this arrangement led to physicians cancelling 43% of the tests flagged as being a duplicate test order. Needless to say, the cost savings were substantial. You’ll also learn about another project that addressed unnecessary testing groups and pre-check order sets. Equally impressive savings resulted from these efforts and earned positive recognition from administration.
Yet another successful initiative at UMMC that you can duplicate within your institution was a project to improve pharmacy utilization. Brimhall will share how the collaboration with lab, pharmacy, and physicians was organized, and the action steps taken to leverage lab test data with pharmacy expertise so that physicians understood their best choices for therapeutic drugs for individual patients. The savings tracked for just one type of infection and associated antibiotic was more than $825,000!
Of course, pathologists and lab managers cannot do this without the full support and engagement of other clinical services and hospital administration. That’s why we asked Bryan Clements, Director of Decision Support at UMMC to address ways that the lab can engage hospital and health system administrators. Bryan participated in these lab/clinical service collaborations and will discuss how to successfully break down silos on the business side during the formation of a clinical consultant committee, and the positive impact you can expect when influential individuals within the hospitals agree to be part of the collaboration.
Next hear about easy-to-implement projects “inside the lab”
to cut costs, streamline work processes, and improve
patient safety and quality of care
Next, the webinar will shift gears and focus on the easiest source of gains and increased value: projects within the lab to cut costs, to streamline work processes to eliminate waste and errors, and to improve quality that contributes to patient safety and improved patient care. Leo Serrano, Clinical and Operational Consultant with FirstPath in Pompano Beach, Florida, will address the lab improvement successes at five-hospital Broward Health, the hospital system served by the pathologists at FirstPath.
In 2012, Serrano was tasked with cutting $2 million from the annual operating budget of the Broward Health clinical laboratory. This was a tall order, since Broward Health is comprised of six hospitals, plus associated clinics and providers. It is the nation’s tenth largest public healthcare system and has the second busiest ED and trauma service in Florida.
You’ll hear how Serrano and his lab team tackled a variety of initiatives to improve the utilization of clinical laboratory testing. From July 2012 through July 2013, the different initiatives to improve utilization of clinical lab testing delivered estimated savings of $871,000. During 2014, an additional $531,000 was saved because of these efforts to add value to medical laboratory testing services.
You’ll learn how the lab team implemented important changes in CPOE for lab test ordering, initiated by the health system’s CPOE committee—that along with physicians, included lab professionals. Attention was paid to establishing ordering rules that addressed the right tests in ordering panels and the frequency, by procedure, that physicians would be allowed to order tests.
Are expensive esoteric, molecular, or genetic tests
an ongoing budget-buster for your laboratory?
Serrano has answers. He’ll explain to you how the Medical Executive Council interacted with medical directors of the molecular laboratory. The council reviewed the recommendations and helped establish the ordering parameters. These included, where appropriate, insurance pre-approval, and recognizing opportunities to order necessary tests later, as an outpatient procedure because of the availability of community health grants designed to help such patients. Just these simple steps generated $100,000 in cost savings for esoteric tests in the first six months of this program.
Also to be covered during Serrano’s presentation will be information about how test algorithms were developed and implemented and how a revamped lab test formulary committee (with 12 physicians of different specialties, including pathology) worked to sort lab tests into three priority tiers; an action that contributed to improved utilization of lab tests and reduced costs.
This is an exceptional opportunity for you and your lab team to explore, learn, and understand how these two first-mover lab organizations took smart steps to convert lab data into value-added diagnostics services. Nowhere else can you hear, in an information-packed 90 minutes, two innovative lab organizations share the lessons learned in doing collaborative projects both “outside the lab” and “inside the lab.”
Plus, the timing of this webinar is perfect. Everywhere clinical labs and pathology groups are feeling the urgency to minimize dependence on fee-for-service payments by developing new, added-value diagnostic services.
Just a sampling of the indispensable guidance
you’ll take away from this timely presentation:
- Starting points for examining your laboratory utilization including duplicate, cancelled, and unnecessary testing, new technology assessment, project evaluation, and pharmacy utilization
- How to identify potential cost savings and quality improvement areas
- Examination of current ordering patterns and effective matching to best practices
- Steps for establishing a committee of collaborating multi-specialty clinicians, including laboratory participation and facilitation to provide assistance, guidance, and support
- Suggestions for implementation of such a committee, including resources you can use to help
- Support systems you can put in place to assist clinicians in ordering and using laboratory tests appropriately and efficiently, managing resistance, and other tips for success
- Why it’s important to establish a lab information repository for clinicians that includes test information and algorithms, plus identification of outdated and discontinued tests
- An interactive question-and-answer session at the conclusion of the webinar, and much more!
THE DARK REPORT WEBINAR AT A GLANCEDATE: Thursday, July 23, 2015 TIME: 1 PM EDT; 12 Noon CDT; 11 AM MDT; 10 AM PDT PLACE: Your computer and/or speakerphone COST: $195 per site (unlimited attendance per site) through 7/16/15, $245 thereafter TO REGISTER: Click here or call 1-800-560-6363 toll-free |
For one low price—just $195 (through 7/16/15; $245 thereafter), you and your entire team can take part in this fast-paced, insightful webinar. Best of all, you’ll be able to submit your own specific questions during the Q&A session following our speakers’ prepared remarks. This is high value for you, and your entire laboratory team!
All labs have good reason to feel the pressure to act.
Take the first step now while it’s fresh on your mind–
register your entire team for this essential webinar!
On January 26 this year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a press release that set a target of moving 30% of traditional Medicare Part B payments to “quality or value models” by as early as the end of 2016 and to 50% by the end of 2018.
That means just 18 months remain before the end of 2016, when CMS wants 30% of traditional Part B payments to be in the form of quality- or value-based reimbursement. You can see why it is timely for you and your lab team to join this important webinar and learn the proven steps to take basic lab data and convert it into high-value information that directly improves patient outcomes and helps physicians reduce the overall cost of care.
How to Register:
1. Online
2. Call toll free: 800-560-6363.
Your registration includes:
- A site license to attend the webinar (invite as many people as you can fit around your conference table at no extra charge)
- A downloadable PowerPoint presentation from our speakers
- A full transcript emailed to you soon after the conference
- The opportunity to connect directly with the speakers during the audience Q&A session
Register Now! Or for more information, call us toll-free at 800-560-6363.
Please be advised that no purchase orders to attend the live Event will be accepted after 11 PM EDT (“live participation cut-off”) the day before the Event. Customers may still purchase the CD recording of the Event any time after the live participation cut-off.
