bioMérieux, Durham, NC, is helping customers determine their workflow efficiency with its new survey resource tool.
LabScore—which was created by the company’s microbiology lab efficiency experts to assesses workflow optimization and provide comparison data with similar labs—measures optimization of people, process, and technology. It aims to help lab leaders quickly identify their strengths and weaknesses, and provides clear benchmarks for improvement.
For decades, microbiology labs have relied solely on manual techniques that often made their work prone to errors, particularly in acquiring a quality isolate, the company says, In more recent years, the industry has struggled to keep pace with a workforce that’s aging and retiring more quickly than it’s growing–and all in the face of an increasing number of patients, testing demands, budget constraints, and new challenges associated with health care Reform. All too often, hospital and lab administrators are forced to tackle such challenges one-by-one based on priority or available resources.
The Microbiology Pathway is the company’s patient-centric approach to microbiology lab operations. It takes a holistic view of a lab’s people, process, and technology to identify opportunities to improve productivity and traceability, minimize errors to improve quality, and support rapid clinical decisions by reducing turnaround times.
“Many labs are looking at making additions, such as automation, in order to keep pace with the growing demand for testing, but automation alone rarely does the trick,” says Ben Andrews, executive director Performance Solutions, bioMérieux Inc. “If a lab’s existing processes are inefficient, automating those processes are more likely to create expensive technology bottlenecks and become counterproductive.”
Roberta B. Carey, PhD, is the 2013 recipient of the bioMérieux Sonnenwirth Award for Leadership in Clinical Microbiology. Given in memory of Alexander Sonnenwirth, PhD, the award honors a top microbiologist for her or his innovation in clinical laboratory science, dedication to ASM, and leadership in the microbiology field. Carey serves as director of CDC’s Laboratory Quality Management Program with responsibilities for oversight of the quality management system for CDC Infectious Disease laboratories, for which she also serves as the Interim CLIA Director.
Roberta B. Carey, PhD[Source: bioMérieux]
