Non-Patient Laboratory Outreach Testing Feasibility Study For A Community Hospital Laboratory

An assessment of the feasibility was conducted for developing, and implementing a new service that would accept non-patient specimens for testing in a community hospital laboratory. The service would improve the delivery of healthcare services for patient, physician, and community through the recommendations. Costs persistently rise and shortages amongst physicians and other patient care personnel are climbing. Supporting our community and system physicians by offering high quality laboratory testing in a timely manner with consultative services offered by pathology reinforces a community hospital’s commitment to improving the physician experience. Diagnostic laboratory testing is a critical piece in treating patients, and the option to send specimen testing to the hospital laboratory has been a requested service from physicians whose offices are located in close proximity. Studying the feasibility of adding an additional service line for specimen only outreach testing including an electronic order entry option, overcoming the managed care contract barrier and staffing considerations would be beneficial to patients, caregivers and the community hospital. The potential exists to reduce costs, improve quality and strengthen physician engagement by implementing one of the recommendations. Providing quality laboratory results to the clinics within the system and community physicians surrounding is an opportunity for clinical laboratories to positively impact the utilization management of diagnostic testing in collaboration with managed care organizations to deliver healthcare more efficiently. Recommendations for the community hospital include offering the service to system owned physician clinics with the phased implementation of the electronic medical record. To service non-system owned clinics near the facility web based software is an alternative