Regional Medical Laboratory

Data warehouse strategies and the modern anatomic pathology laboratory: Quality management, patient safety, and pathology productivity issues and opportunities

Abstract: Application of lean process management strategies to process improvement in clinical and anatomic pathology laboratories afford opportunities to enhance workflow process to lower costs and simultaneously to improve patient safety. Bar-codes are now employed in most modern anatomic pathology laboratories to track specimens from the clinicians’ office or the operating room all through the continuum of service to specimen disposal. In order to enhance patient safety and workload optimization strategies, novel computer hardware and software assets are being developed to enable monitoring, analysis, and improvement of specimen workflow and diagnostic accuracy. More recently, data warehouse technologies from the retail industry have been optimized to permit high-throughput analysis of granular data in the laboratory arena. These optimize mass-data analysis in real time in the information technology space. In this review we describe the application of an inhouse designed data warehouse to the anatomic pathology assets of a large regional reference laboratory.

Regional Medical Laboratory partners with Pathology Laboratory Associates for pathology services. Pathology Laboratory Associates is also responsible for laboratory management of RML and adds expertise in laboratory planning and design, management and marketing functions. PLA and RML are deeply involved in laboratory informatics and in the development of laboratory management and utilization software applications. The following article was written by members of PLA and describes their experience applying data warehousing strategies to the anatomic pathology laboratory.

By: A Neil Crowson, Michael Harvey and Spencer Stout of Pathology Laboratory Associates, Inc.
Seminars in Diagnostic Pathology, 2019-09-01, Volume 36, Issue 5, Pages 294-302, Copyright © 2019

Link to full article at the ELSEVIER website.

To learn more about Pathology Laboratory Associates or for contact information, please visit our About Us page.