On-Demand Webinar: Laboratory Medicine and Healthcare Quality: Foundational Pillars for Excellence-White Paper - Laboratory Medicine and Healthcare Quality: Foundational Pillars for Excellence

White Paper - Laboratory Medicine and Healthcare Quality: Foundational Pillars for Excellence

Pdf Summary

The document argues that healthcare excellence depends on a coordinated, multidisciplinary workforce that challenges traditional practices and applies quality-improvement methods to achieve better outcomes for patients and other stakeholders (clinicians, administrators, and payors). While physicians, nurses, and pharmacists are core members of such teams, the text emphasizes two often under-recognized contributors: laboratorians and healthcare quality professionals. Laboratories routinely operate at high levels of quality—delivering timely, accurate results under heavy volume—and their importance was highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Quality professionals complement laboratory expertise by bringing structured improvement approaches focused on efficiency, workflow, and continuous process improvement.<br /><br />To illustrate, the document presents a hospital example implementing procalcitonin (PCT)-guided therapy to reduce ICU sepsis mortality and decrease unnecessary antibiotic days. Because PCT interpretation and associated workflow changes can be complex (e.g., timing, communication of results, delta values), the hospital used Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) to proactively design a safer process. Facilitated by a quality professional, a multidisciplinary team (laboratory, IT, ED and ICU physicians and nurses) created a process flow map, identified potential failure modes at each step, and scored each risk by severity, frequency, and detectability. Nine failure modes were identified, with several rated at the highest severity, including issues in patient eligibility, timely test results, clinical assessment/reassessment, and therapeutic follow-up.<br /><br />After identifying risks, the organization applies additional tools (e.g., Five Whys, Root Cause Analysis) to develop safeguards, then measures performance using process, outcome, and balancing metrics. Examples include on-time PCT draws, standardized sepsis order set usage, ICU sepsis mortality, antibiotic days, and unintended consequences such as resistance patterns or C. difficile rates.<br /><br />The document concludes that shared quality-improvement language and tools—supported by NAHQ’s Healthcare Quality Competencies Framework—help teams implement changes effectively, demonstrate measurable outcome gains, and potentially earn recognition through the UNIVANTS of Healthcare Excellence awards.

Keywords

multidisciplinary healthcare teams

healthcare quality improvement

laboratory medicine

healthcare quality professionals

procalcitonin-guided therapy

ICU sepsis mortality reduction

antibiotic stewardship

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)

root cause analysis and Five Whys

process outcome and balancing metrics