June 2009 - Posts

Management Myths
June 29, 2009 6:14 AM by Scott Warner

One of the realities of my job has been working with other healthcare managers. In the last ten years, I've worked with many. At the risk of telling secrets, here are a few myths about managers: Managers are trained to do their jobs. Many managers are Read More...

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Turnaround Time
June 24, 2009 7:05 AM by Scott Warner

Suppose you want to measure turnaround time for ED specimens. This naturally raises the question What is turnaround time? According to one article in Clinical Biochemist , although clinicians complain about turnaround times being too long, most don't Read More...

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The Right Specimen
June 19, 2009 6:09 AM by Scott Warner

The New York Times reports that a laboratory sent letters to nearly a thousand patients for redraws after six patient samples on six specific days in a nine-month period were discovered as mislabeled. A hospital spokesman describes them as "isolated incidents," Read More...

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Questions and Answers
June 15, 2009 6:02 AM by Scott Warner

Your workplace may have a buddy system to bond new hires with your organization. That's great for trivial questions about the lunch menu, where to park, or who handles payroll. But what about tough questions? For example: Why do I work more weekends than Read More...

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Barcode Your QI Part 3
June 10, 2009 5:49 AM by Scott Warner

With a handheld scanner attached to our terminal, here's a batch file to capture data: @ECHO OFF :LOOP SET /P ACCT=WAND TUBE ECHO %ACCT% %DATE% %TIME% >> SCANNED.LOG GOTO LOOP Saved as SCANNED.BAT in a place where you can run it – such as the Desktop Read More...

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Barcode Your QI Part 2
June 5, 2009 6:25 AM by Scott Warner

A barcode is data that can be read by an optical scanner. A laboratory instrument, for example, may read a specimen label barcode to query a host computer for patient demographics and test information. The point is twofold: you don't have to, and the Read More...

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Barcode Your QI Part 1
June 1, 2009 4:48 AM by Scott Warner

To reduce STAT turnaround time variation, you sometimes have to dig deeper. A chemistry specimen, for example, may have at least four stops before a result is sent from an analyzer to the information system to be verified: labeling, centrifugation, chemistry Read More...

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