Nov 23, 2015 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
Top-performing medical laboratories are using Lean to help craft RFPs, evaluate TLA options, then implement the automated systems to achieve optimal quality and productivity
In recent years, there’s been a big change in how clinical laboratories purchase total laboratory automation (TLA) solutions, and then integrate this automation into their lab operations. Using a strategy that is somewhat off the radar, top-performing medical laboratories will purchase and install TLA only after applying the principles of Lean to the physical layout and overall workflow within their labs.
This development demonstrates the growing acceptance of Lean, Six Sigma, and continuous process improvement methods at hospital-based laboratories and independent clinical laboratories.
As lab budgets get squeezed down each year and specimen volume increases, pathologists and clinical lab managers face the twin challenges of reducing costs while increasing the quality of their lab testing services. (more…)
Aug 26, 2015 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing, Laboratory Testing, Management & Operations, News From Dark Daily
In provinces across Canada, health systems are dealing with limited budgets, growing populations, and the need to transition to personalized medicine
Medical laboratories in Canada have something in common with medical laboratories in most other developed nations. Demand for healthcare services exceeds capacity, even as the healthcare system struggles to find adequate funding. This puts pathology labs in a bind, since they are asked to test growing numbers of specimens even as budgets are flat or shrinking.
That means the biggest two challenges facing labs in Canada will be familiar to pathologists, clinical chemists and medical laboratory scientists in almost every other developed nation across the globe. One challenge is how to meet the steady annual increase in lab specimens that must be tested. The second challenge is how to do that additional testing even as government health systems are forced to trim budgets year after year. (more…)
May 19, 2011 | Laboratory Pathology, News From Dark Daily
IVD manufacturers often introduce their newest technologies in Europe before the United States
DATELINE: BERLIN, GERMANY: With so many changes happening to clinical pathology laboratory testing in developed nations around the world, there is keen interest in evolving technologies, along with new medical laboratory instruments and automation products that clinical biochemists and pathologists will use, in the near future, to improve the quality of the clinical laboratory testing services they provide to physicians.
Here at the IFCC-WorldLab Berlin 2011 conference, pathologists and clinical chemists from the United States got an early peek at some of the latest and newest solutions developed by the world’s largest in vitro diagnostics (IVD) manufacturers. Many products on display at the IFCC WorldLab Exhibition have only been cleared for sale by the European Union. These products do not have clearance by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States for sale and use in this country.
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Aug 11, 2010 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Trend is toward increased use of automation, particularly modular and task-targeted solutions, by medical laboratories across the globe
Worldwide, growing numbers of clinical pathology laboratories and medical laboratories are purchasing total laboratory automation (TLA) systems. This is evidence that the latest generation of laboratory automation products are more robust in use compared to prior years and can be purchased at a price that produces an acceptable return on investment (ROI).
However, the acceptance of total laboratory automation in clinical pathology laboratories is not universal. Only in selected countries have significant numbers of medical laboratories embraced laboratory automation as a way to improve productivity, reduce errors, and boost quality.
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Jul 16, 2010 | Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
TLA and other laboratory automation solutions help clinical labs cope with shortage medical technologists
It’s been about 15 years since the first total laboratory automation (TLA) solutions were introduced into clinical laboratories in the United States. Starting in the mid-1990s, several commercial laboratory companies and a handful of hospital laboratories took the plunge and installed total laboratory automation systems in their high volume core laboratories.
Today, hundreds of clinical pathology laboratories in the United States have turned to laboratory automation as one approach to improving quality, reducing turnaround times for lab test results, to save money, and to improve staff productivity. Starting around the year 2000, an ever-growing number of in vitro diagnostics (IVD) manufacturers and other companies have introduced laboratory automation solutions and systems. This has widened the choices of medical laboratories, who often prefer a task-targeted automation solution to the “whole enchilada”—total laboratory automation.
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