The COVID-19 pandemic brought laboratory medicine much more visibly into the spotlight. How did the hospital president’s increased awareness of laboratory operations during COVID influence the conversation about investing in a new laboratory?
One of the results of our site’s response to COVID-19 was consistent leadership rounding with teammates throughout the hospital to connect with the front-line teammates who were managing new challenges. When our President visited the laboratory, she began to see these infrastructure issues through discussions with the team, as well as her own observations. As a result of these visits, she saw the need for fixing these issues. As the potential for repairs were investigated, she was able to determine that the cost to try to fix all of the issues observed within the current space was not feasible. This led her to advocate for the building of a new laboratory space within our facility.
For laboratory leaders who are trying to secure capital investment, what do you think is the biggest mistake they make when presenting their needs to hospital executives?
When we communicate in only laboratory terms, it is very hard for them to understand the bigger picture impact. We really need to ensure that we are communicating the patient impact that happens due to the issues identified in the laboratory space. Our example would be our plumbing that was failing had the potential to have a complete break over our main chemistry analyzers. This would have led to our inability to perform ANY patient chemistry testing for a significant amount of time. These were the consistent communications we shared with our leadership team to ensure that we all understood the potential impacts.
Staffing is a challenge throughout laboratory medicine right now. Did the new laboratory give you opportunities to redesign workflows or use technology in ways that could help address staffing pressures?
When we were designing our new laboratory space, we definitely evaluated our workflows in order to ensure the optimum staffing and support. We asked for the input from our front line teammates in order to ensure that we were identifying the most optimal workflows and designs as we moved into this new space. The architect met with the technical team to identify the best layout for teammates to help support other teammates. Additionally, the support services team discussed with the architect the best way to lay out the processing area to reduce their travel in a much larger space. This allowed their work to be more streamlined and focused. This update allowed them to keep our staffing the same, despite increasing the size of the laboratory.
If you could help other hospital leaders understand one thing about the laboratory that they may not fully appreciate, what would you want that to be?
The laboratory team is a vital part of ensuring that we provide the best possible patient care. We know that patients may never see laboratory teammates, but without their work, physicians would not be able to decide the best course of treatment. If we consistently ignore this vital team and the environment that they work in, we will lose a vital part of our patient care model. When we ensure the care of this team through ensuring that they have what they need to perform proper patient testing, they will provide more proficient and thorough patient results, leading to the best patient care and outcomes.
