While workforce shortages in the lab continue, a long-term solution could be more, varied educational opportunities. 

By Tara Cepull

Summary: The clinical laboratory industry is experiencing a significant workforce shortage, with technology, international recruitment, and education being explored as potential solutions.

Takeaways:

  1. Workforce Shortage: The clinical lab sector is facing a critical shortage of qualified professionals, with only 5,000 graduates entering the field annually, despite a need for 12,000.
  2. Technology and Education: Automation and VR training tools are being utilized, but hands-on experience remains crucial, and new educational initiatives target students as early as high school.
  3. Recruitment Challenges: International recruitment and retention strategies offer potential solutions, but face significant legal, cultural, and logistical hurdles.

There is little argument that clinical laboratories are facing a significant workforce shortage. It was estimated in 2016 that 12,000 new medical lab professional graduates per year were needed to meet growing demand, yet only 5,000 were graduating academic programs1.  And the lab staffing crisis continues to this day with the current census showing that the US and Canada are roughly 20,000-25,000 lab professionals short2.

Workforce Shortage: Possible Solutions

With the growing ubiquity of artificial intelligence (AI), using technology to bridge the gap in understaffed labs is one potential solution. One way technology is harnessed in laboratories is through automation. While it may help with some of the more mundane, monotonous tasks in the lab, automation-based technologies still require oversight from laboratory staff; these technologies cannot solve the lab staffing shortage alone.

Because there is a deficit of qualified individuals graduating from U.S. and Canadian academic programs, some organizations may consider recruiting internationally to alleviate the issue. However, there are many potential hurdles3 to consider when doing so, including the legal costs and ramifications for sponsoring a candidate, cultural differences and communication barriers, and regulatory compliance matters to examine. Many smaller laboratories are simply not capable of assuming the responsibilities that accompany hiring internationally. Therefore, this staffing strategy has significant limitations.

Keeping qualified professionals in the industry is important, especially as we have seen mass exiting and retirements4 in the laboratory sector since the COVID pandemic began in 20205, often referred to as “The Great Resignation6.” However, while retention efforts may help individual facilities keep their own qualified staff, it will likely only have a small impact on the larger staffing shortage problem.

Laboratory advocate Angela Tomei Robinson, MS, MLS (ASCP) says there are now opportunities via other innovative programs and strategic initiatives that provide participants with a chance to qualify as lab staff, potentially creating additional interest in this space to help alleviate the workforce shortage. Such programs mentor and support the participants in gaining the education and experience needed to become nationally certified, helping promote general science majors into the lab field after graduation. She elaborates that master’s degree programs in medical laboratory science are now available to those with general science bachelor degrees. There are also now three Doctor of Clinical Laboratory Science degree programs7 in the United States.

While these once non-traditional paths of qualifying to work in clinical labs are needed and may help with the staffing shortages, these efforts alone will also not significantly ameliorate the understaffing burden that, meanwhile, continues to grow.

Is Education the Answer?

Education is certainly critical—but when is the right time to start? For one educator, high school is the perfect place.

Developer and instructor of the Medical Laboratory Assisting and Phlebotomy program at BOCES 2 WEMOCO in Rochester, New York, Jim Payne, M.Ed., AHI, CPT is working with schools across the country to encourage the introduction of similar programs to high school students in hopes of bringing awareness to career opportunities; given the experience the participants of his program gain, they are employable upon high school graduation.

“Laboratory jobs do not carry the same awareness as those in medicine and law, for example, but allowing opportunities for kids to consider and even try out the profession ahead of high school graduation is key to increasing awareness that will have a positive impact on future lab staffing levels,” he says.

Further Listening: Has a High School Found the Solution to the Laboratorian Shortage?

Marianne Downes, PhD, MLS (ASCP), director of the recently restarted Medical Laboratory Science Program at Geisinger, believes that exposure to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in junior high school can also spark excitement for a career in science.

“If every staff member at clinical labs across the country were to attend one elementary, middle, or high school career event each, no one organization or person would bear the burden of this push toward awareness and early education,” she says.

Echoing Downes, Robinson noted that promoting clinical laboratory careers at high school job and health fairs is another way to build awareness.

Rodney E. Rohde, PhD, MS, SM (ASCP) CM, SV CM, MB CM, FACSc, Global Fellow, University Distinguished Chair and Regents’ Professor of the Medical Laboratory Science Program at Texas State University, as well as associate director at Translational Health Research Center, agrees that creating an awareness of professional laboratory careers earlier (e.g., in middle and high school) as well as emphasizing these options in early college advising are good strategies. He added that it is imperative to grow existing programs, add new academic programs, create innovative programs with industry and healthcare, and retain the professionals already in lab career paths.

Workforce Shortage and Higher Education

In terms of college education, the National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences (NAACLS) sets the accreditation standards for programs, and their curriculums are subject to regular review in order to ensure that education continues to align with current standards and practices in the profession.

Downes notes that any program that meets these standards would prepare graduates at the “gold standard” in terms of quality training. She also advocates for skill-based training and competency assessment for students, including soft skills such as creating a resume and searching for a job. Networking or attending industry conferences, which often offer lower or no fees for student attendance, are other ways college students can get involved and test the waters of a potential career in the laboratory.

Payne suggests that local labs offer paid internship programs. Internships benefit the lab as well as the student, alleviating shortages short-term during summers and holidays, while training a potential laboratory employee.

Supplemental to college laboratory training programs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s OneLab initiative8 offers a variety of free resources. It was developed in 2021 to unite laboratory professionals with a goal “to build capacity and establish a sustainable learning community that equips the laboratory workforce and testing community with the essential tools and resources to improve public health and patient outcomes.”

In 2024, the CDC launched OneLab VR, a multiplayer virtual reality (VR) environment that contains an ever-expanding suite of laboratory training scenarios. It includes a 50,000 square-foot virtual facility designed for clinical and public health laboratory training. OneLab VR offers live training on-site and on-demand VR training that cover a variety of laboratory topics.

“OneLab VR offers a training experience in a laboratory environment unlike anything out there,” says Joe Rothschild, OneLab VR team lead, Training and Workforce Development Branch, Division of Laboratory Systems, CDC. “Having a live, virtual, hands-on training with an instructor who can offer immediate feedback and guidance takes laboratory training to another level as everyone can see, hear, and talk to one another in real time. By using traditional and VR training, laboratories can create a comprehensive and effective training program that enhances learner engagement, promotes practical application of knowledge, provides realistic experiences, and delivers measurable training outcomes.”.

While there are a number of online programs, experts still believe strongly that hands-on experience is necessary, and such experience is a requirement of all CLIA personnel roles for diagnostic facilities. The Training and Workforce Development Branch of the CDC notes that clinical laboratory work experience should be a requirement of all college-level programs for laboratorians and that such hands-on experience is essential to ensure lab personnel are trained properly; addressing staffing challenges is important to the CDC, which is why they are, “…offer[ing] eLearning courses, virtual reality (VR) courses, job aids, and webinars that help short-staffed laboratories train and prepare their staff without the cost and resource burdens associated with in-person training or needing to develop training resources themselves.”

Besides bringing awareness to young students about career paths in the laboratory space, Payne believes educating the general public as a whole is necessary, including legislators. His students hosted local politicians during Lab Week in 2023; this allowed the legislators, many of whom had no prior exposure, to learn about lab processes.

“Politicians inform healthcare policy and regulations, so having them more educated as to what labs do can only help create better healthcare reform,” he says.

Downes believes a more accurate portrayal of lab work in the media would help people see that these careers exist and inform their future studies.

Looking Ahead

While the shortages continue, there is confidence that they can be solved through hard work, creativity, and professional grit.

 “We must all be advocates for the profession by being prepared to spread the word about professional opportunities,” says Payne.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tara Cepull is a contributor to CLP.

References

  1. Clinical Laboratory Personnel Shortage. American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science. 2024. https://ascls.org/workforce      
  2. “We’re Facing A Critical Shortage Of Medical Laboratory Professionals.” Stone, Judy. Forbes. April 28, 2022. https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2022/04/28/were-facing-a-critical-shortage-of-medical-laboratory-professionals/?sh=4bc2b797260c
  3. “Challenges of Hiring International Employees and Tips to Overcome Them.” Boon. Undated. https://goboon.co/post/challenges-of-hiring-international-employees-and-tips-to-overcome-them
  4. “The Impact of Coronavirus Pandemic on Laboratory Workforce: What’s Next?” Montgomery, Susan. Critical Values. Jan. 28, 2022.      https://www.criticalvalues.org/news/all/2022/01/28/the-impact-of-coronavirus-pandemic-on-laboratory-workforce-what-s-next
  5. Angela Tomei Robinson & Rodney E Rohde. Workforce in the Shadow of Healthcare – An Update on the Survival Status of Laboratory Medicine and Public Health. Biomed J Sci & Tech 54(5)-2024. BJSTR. MS.ID.008604. https://biomedres.us/pdfs/BJSTR.MS.ID.008604.pdf
  6. “How Has the Great Resignation Impacted the Lab Director Job Market?” Luellen, Tara. Lighthouse Lab Services. April 27, 2022.      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prsTBEV8oFo
  7. Rohde R.E. & Angela Tomei Robinson. American Society of Microbiology. Using Laboratory Medicine to Support Direct Patient Care. October 5, 2021. https://asm.org/Articles/2021/October/Using-Laboratory-Medicine-to-Support-Direct-Patien
  8. About CDC OneLab. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Undated. https://reach.cdc.gov/about