Simple, Swift Approaches to Lab Test Utilization Management: Proven Ways for Your Clinical Laboratory to Use Data and Collaborations to Add Value

Webinar was held
Thursday, June 29, 2017

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Today’s hottest topic in the clinical laboratory profession is utilization management of laboratory tests, for a simple reason. A successful lab test utilization project typically produces improved patient outcomes while reducing lab costs and cutting the overall cost of the patient encounter.

Better yet, projects to improve lab test utilization can be initiated quickly and typically produce almost immediate improvements in patient care and healthcare costs. That makes this lab strategy a triple winner, because the patients get better care, physicians achieve higher outcomes, and the clinical lab gets both recognition and increased funding because of the value it has added!

This is good news for all labs, whether large or small; whether hospital-based or independent. Lab test utilization projects are a proven way to raise the lab’s profile with administration and physicians because the added value from these projects is easy to measure, both in terms of patient care and the decreased cost of care.

However, there is a right and a wrong way for labs to launch utilization management projects. Done right, physicians jump on board, administration provides resources, and the resulting collaboration delivers speedy gains in patient outcomes. Done wrong, the lab finds itself pushing against provider resistance and organizational hurdles, with little to show for much effort.

That is why it is essential that your clinical lab and pathology group get it right when initiating a project to improve how physicians utilize a specific clinical laboratory test. To help you and your lab team understand best practices in the utilization of lab tests, Dark Daily has organized a special webinar, “Simple, Swift Approaches to Lab Test Utilization Management: Proven Ways for Your Clinical Laboratory to Use Data and Collaborations to Add Value.”

Whether your lab is just beginning to develop lab test utilization projects or has extensive experience, this webinar is the ideal learning opportunity for your entire team. That’s because one expert speaker is working with a globally-respected reference laboratory organization that can tap the clinical best practices of the Mayo Clinic, and the other expert speaker is working in a community hospital environment just like yours.

Thus, during this information-packed 90-minute webinar, you’ll get to see the best practices in lab test utilization management that have been developed by Mayo Clinic and similar respected hospitals. That will be followed by the street-smart experience gained by a lab like yours, working in a community hospital setting.

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The opening speaker is Tammy Fletcher, MAOL, Administrator, Value Based Services, Mayo Medical Laboratories, Rochester, MN. She is responsible for helping MML’s hospital clients develop effective lab test utilization projects. In that role, Fletcher gets to see how clinical best practices used within the Mayo Clinic are shared with other clients.

Fletcher will teach you the five-step road map your lab can follow to always be successful with your lab test utilization management (UM) projects. She’ll explain the concept of “utilization management readiness” and how your lab can use that to prepare the foundation for successful collaborations with your physicians.

Next, you will learn how to assess your lab’s preparedness to be effective with lab test UM. Each of the nine competencies of UM will be shared and explained. From leadership support and data analysis, to staff commitment and knowledge diffusion, you’ll learn the correct way to organize your lab—and your hospital’s clinical team—to initiate the most effective clinical care protocols that help physicians order the right test on the right patient at the right time.

Your second speaker is Bobbi Kochevar, MBA, MLS(ASCP), Director of Diagnostic Services at North Memorial Health in Robbinsdale, MN. She will share with you how the utilization management techniques taught by Fletcher were used by her lab and clinical teams to improve patient care and reduce costs.

She will demonstrate the way most clinical labs are data rich and information poor—along with how to change that. You’ll learn about the middleware tool that enables her lab team to do real-time analytics in ways that support improved patient outcomes and more consistent adherence to care protocols.

Kochevar will explain the five categories of lab test utilization, which include:

• Repetitive or duplicative testing
• High-cost and unreimbursed testing
• Obsolete or unproven test ordering
• Contraindicated screening and testing
• Inappropriate tests by demographic

These categories of lab test utilization are familiar to all pathologists, clinical chemists, medical technologists, and other lab scientists. In fact, your lab’s staff generally already knows which physicians daily order tests which fall into one of these categories, thereby using lab tests that have little or no benefit to the patient while costing the parent health system much needless money.

What is important for you in participating in this webinar is that you’ll learn proven methods your lab team can use to collaborate with the physicians to address these opportunities to cut waste while helping patients get a better outcome. And isn’t that the ultimate goal of laboratory medicine?

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During this essential 90-minute webinar, you and your lab team will:

• Learn the fast-track secrets to launching a utilization management project and getting buy-in from administration and physicians
• Understand why some UM projects succeed spectacularly and others fail to engage, with tips on ensuring a winning collaboration
• Know the nine competencies every lab needs to initiate successful utilization management programs
• Identify the five categories of lab test utilization and how each requires a different UM approach to improve patient outcomes

As an added bonus, at the conclusion of the presentation there will be a Q&A period during which you’ll be able to submit your own specific questions to our expert panel. This segment of the webinar represents particularly high value for you and your lab team!

Lab test utilization is probably the number one topic in the clinical lab industry today, and this important webinar has much to teach. Order now, and get ready to learn the firsthand insights your lab needs to provide care pathways that improve test utilization, and to identify the right elements to measure so as to demonstrate improved patient care and ultimately lower the overall cost of care.