Understanding the Challenges

Healthcare executives and providers understand the importance of the diagnostic laboratory to patient care -- as many as 70% of clinical decisions are based on diagnostic laboratory results; strategies to improve efficiency and diagnoses must be promoted.^1,2 The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) recently cut reimbursements by 8% overall and 30% for specific tests. In addition, approximately 5000 students graduate yearly from accredited medical laboratory science programs, yet there are 18,000 annual vacancies. Health centers are seeing increasing patient loads requiring more testing. There is a constant need to improve diagnostic accuracy, expand test menus, and at the same time, process workloads faster. In addition, labor costs represent the largest portion of diagnostic laboratory budgets; labor costs continue to grow as the declining number of skilled workers request greater pay.

To address all of this, diagnostic laboratories need to improve workforce productivity. Investing in modern equipment and management technology is helpful but it is expensive and the return on investment for small to medium size facilities may not be reasonable. This course will look at the challenges by addressing six main factors.