ANATOMICAL PATHOLOGY BUSINESS ANALYSIS

 

 

 

The Anatomic Pathology Laboratories are taking a hard look at how to improve their standing in the market. Given the current industry trend of consolidation, where a few laboratories increasingly dominate the market, and where reimbursements are under pressure, opportunities to increase capacity, enhance revenue, and mitigate liability are scarce.

 

The Anatomic Pathology Laboratories are taking a hard look at how to improve their standing in the market. Given the current industry trend of consolidation, where a few laboratories increasingly dominate the market, and where reimbursements are under pressure, opportunities to increase capacity, enhance revenue, and mitigate liability are scarce.
 

Clinical laboratory testing is generally categorized as either of two general areas - clinical testing and anatomical pathology testing. Clinical and anatomical pathology procedures are frequently ordered as part of regular physician office visits and hospital admissions in connection with the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses. As such, clinical laboratory analysis is one of the most important sections of medical care.
 

The purpose of this laboratory systems integration is to facilitate the specific segments of the clinical laboratory analysis business.
 

1.1 Challenges of Anatomic Pathology
 

The most significant challenges faced by clinical laboratories are a consolidating marketplace, workflow inefficiencies, and risk of liability.
 

For laboratories, the marketplace has been consolidating in favor of a few, large laboratories. Managed care has driven consolidation, which results in potentially lower revenues. As profits decrease, opportunities for growth and differentiation are reduced, making it difficult to stay competitive.
 

Workflow Inefficiencies
 

The challenge of staying competitive in an environment of decreasing revenues makes lean operations and standardization crucial, yet challenging, components of decision making. For example, shortage of pathologists in one lab results in a backlog and five-day turnaround time. A competing lab offers a two day turnaround time and is therefore able to market this improved efficiency and gain new business.
Increased throughput capacity is needed, but staffing issues make the process daunting. New technologies are needed that address staffing shortages in the lab, and thereby improve workflow inefficiencies.
 

Risk of Liability
 

Risk mitigation is achieved by meeting the standard of care. The standard of care is determined by expert testimony in malpractice suits based on several factors that include customary practice in similar situations, medical textbooks, peer review literature, practice guidelines issued by professional societies, and any other reliable and relevant sources of information.
 

Advances in health care technology that raise the standard of care are important to track and evaluate in terms of risk mitigation. Laboratories may have an increased liability risk if the highest standard of care is not offered. Test litigation falls into two general categories: process errors and interpretation errors.
 

While many new technologies are often put forward as solutions, laboratories tend to review and evaluate only those technologies that may actually help them increase revenues, lower costs, broaden test offerings, improve quality standards, reduce risk, and, as an added bonus, increase workflow efficiencies.
 

To design new features and functions for Anatomic Pathology, we will focus on the successful configuration and deployment of the Anatomical Pathology system across all laboratories.
 

 

• The hospital laboratories traditionally provide a mix of inpatient and outpatient services in hematology, histology, blood banking, and anatomical pathology.
• Outpatient services represent the bulk of the department's volume; coverage for ambulatory services is provided daily. Lab stations may be considered as part of ambulatory centers if such a strategy is pursued.
• The outpatient lab area includes draw/specimen collection rooms.
• It is likely that laboratory outreach programs with long term care and community based agencies will increase in the future.
• Lab process redesign efforts using LEAN methodology are currently underway throughout. It is likely that the analytic area of the labs will benefit from the transition to LEAN configuration within the next two years. Specific space implications include likely reduction in storage needs and cell station setup for the analytic areas. Users should be consulted about LEAN specifications for lab design as part of programming efforts.
• Pneumatic tube access for the lab is critical. If stations were established in ambulatory centers, pneumatic tube access would also be required to send specimens back to the main lab for analysis.
• Wet tissue samples and slides are currently stored on site and must be retained for up to 20 years. On off-site storage strategy could be used for these materials provided retrieval systems were executed and a controlled environment could be maintained.
• Laboratory leadership believes the current blood bank area is sufficiently sized and functional.
• A staging area should be developed to include space for computer access, label printer and specimen preparation. The area could be dedicated or collocated with the Communication Centre provided sufficient space is available for this function there.
• Proximity to the pneumatic tube station is essential to facilitate movement of specimens between the ED and central labs.
• The analytic area of the hospital labs should be secured using proximity cards or some other appropriate physical barrier to prevent visitors from accidentally wandering into this space.
 

Built for pathologists, the Anatomical Pathology - information technology solution enables pathologists to adapt to and deliver clinical leadership in this ever changing health care environment. The application uses industry leading technologies to facilitate tissue and cellular processing, examination, and resulting and reporting.
 

The information technology solution will build the case for personalized medicine by demonstrating how molecular diagnostics as well as clinical laboratory data obtained through medically necessary testing, impacts patients.
 

An Anatomic Pathology system will:

- drive a more efficient workflow
- enable pathologists to produce concise and clinician interpretable patient results
- embed and automates historically manual processes
- deliver information in a comprehensive, case centric format
- utilize positive patient identification (PPID) to drive patient safety and efficiency across the health system
- incorporate "how to" sessions showing how functions such as rules and post conversion maintenance
- address the emerging trends in inspection and accreditation procedures in the laboratory
 

Investing in the Anatomical Pathology - information technology solution is an important part of staying competitive with potentially positive impacts on growth, risk, and patient outcomes. When evaluating new laboratory technology, there are several important issues the Business Analyst has to consider.
 

The project objective is to provide "personalized medicine" and the intersections between the emerging field and the electronic health record. This entails the planning for and executing projects to meet business and patient safety objectives.
 

Within the scope of this project the Business Analyst will examine the Anatomical Pathology - information technology solution:
 

1. How the technology is utilized to mitigate key risk factors such as errors in patient identification and
delays in report availability
 

2. What's available and what's on the in automation and patient safety, including interfacing with
processing devices as well as new labeling technologies, such as engravers and 2-D bar coding
 

3. Integrating data from multiple sources into a single patient record (inbound results)
 

4. Training - as new technologies emerge or become available, how do you build the necessary skill sets
 

5. Imaging
 

- Is the standard of care advancing in a particular field?
- Does the peer-reviewed literature and regulators support the advance?
- Do patients and stakeholders expect the highest standard, and if so, what is the liability risk of not upgrading?
 

- What effect will the new technology have on patient outcomes?
- Will outcomes improve, stay the same, or worsen?
 

- What impact will the new technology have on workflow efficiencies?
- Will it increase capacity?
- What effects will it have on human resources in terms of recruitment, retention, and retraining?
- Will it improve operations?
- Can the technology be incorporated into a lean operation?
Differentiation:
- Does the technology allow you to stand out from other laboratories in the area?
- Is it a marketing differentiator?
 

3.3 Working with the Technology Partner:
 

Does the Anatomical Pathology - information technology solution have a proven implementation team that will analyze specific business needs and customize the solution to meet them?
 

Does the Anatomical Pathology - information technology solution provide support resources for marketing, training, and educational opportunities?
Greater accuracy is based on a statistically significant improvement in sensitivity and a statistically significant improvement in specificity of the individual clinical trial. False negative reduction is based on a statistically significant improvement in sensitivity.
 

Providing additional tests represents an improvement for patients in terms of convenience and quality of care.
 

The objective is top increase the laboratory throughput capacity. This can have a positive impact on turnaround times, consistency, standardization, reproducibility, and growth.

 

 

Laboratories today face many challenges. Revenue generation and competitive differentiation are key to their success in overcoming those challenges. The proposed systems integration and implementation overcomes many of the inherent challenges of a consolidating marketplace, workflow inefficiencies, and liability. is advancing the standard of care in anatomic pathology and thereby creating a positive impact on both
patient and business outcomes. The Business Analyst will continue to evaluate the development of new technologies that will address the needs of anatomic pathology.
 

Performing a business needs assessment is a powerful method to diagnose workflow inefficiencies and identify opportunities for improvement and growth.
 

What to look for in the Anatomical Pathology - information technology solution:
 

1. Deliver current, evolving standard of care
2. Improve patient outcomes
3. Expand capacity
4. Improve workflow efficiencies
5. Provide a business needs assessment and support throughout implementation
6. Support resources will make a significant contribution to patient screening and patient management
7. Flexible task driven workflow engine
8. Full patient context with embedded dictation and transcription workflow
9. Encoding and mapping to medical standard codes
10. Common terminology manager
11. Comprehensive, accurate activities based costing
12. Bar code label solution to enhance patient safety
13. Integrated clinical pathology results
14. Common platform and service methodology
 

This author consults with leading institutions through GLG