Having a laboratory UM team is essential to a medical system that is interested in quality care and cost-containment. Whether you are in a hospital system, an HMO, an academic medical center, or a small independent laboratory. The primary mission of the UM team remains the same:
- Address issues around inappropriate test use.
- Remove or restrict tests with little clinical value.
- Educate clinicians on appropriate testing.
- Monitor outside test referrals.
- Track the team's efforts on these initiatives.
The lab UM team will also likely select finite projects as well, such as creating and maintaining a lab formulary or creating clinician lab utilization score cards. These will be discussed later in this course. Regardless of what projects or initiatives each UM team undertakes, the members of the team must be qualified, motivated, and empowered to do the hard work it takes to have an effective UM program.
