March 16, 2023 – Whether you are dealing with a long-standing lab customer or a new moderate complexity laboratory customer, your objectives are to assure their satisfaction by assessing and addressing issues related to the big picture issues: lab performance, the quality of the customer experience and availability of needed patient lab tests to assist in creating timely and effective patient care.
So, how do you get to the big picture? By rolling up your sleeves and addressing all the elements of lab management at a sufficient level of detail to assure smooth running of the laboratory. The big picture is made up of a far larger number of individual pieces that all need to fit neatly together. In this column, I plan to provide you with my thinking on management of those pesky individual elements to simplify your workload and to keep your customers’ physician office labs running efficiently.
For a physician office lab to operate optimally, it requires frequent communication and a commitment of all parties (Lab management, lab personnel, manufacturers and you as distributor and quarterback) to manage and maintain the lab. So, what are the moving parts that go into creating an efficiently running laboratory? Granted that a new laboratory will take more of your time and that of your key manufacturing partners, but both new and established labs have all the same needs and requirements. Let’s take a closer look.
As you can see, there is a lot going on and it is your responsibility to quarterback the process and keep the customer from being overwhelmed. Close communication with your lab manufacturers is a strong asset and an example of good teamwork. As a potential best practice, I would suggest developing and communicating a checklist with your customer, your key manufacturers and any outside help you may have available. Making sure all the key activities are visible will make sure they all get timely attention.
Read more in the latest issue of Repertoire Magazine.