Automation and technology will not solve every problem. However, there is a good reason for the growing movement towards more technology in the laboratory: it can be very effective in improving outcomes that matter. Even once lean management principles and processes have been adopted, labs can find opportunities for increased efficiency using information technology (IT).

IT can play an especially valuable role in turnaround time (TAT) reduction by nearly eliminating the human burden of post-analytical reporting. When done carefully—with safeguards and regular monitoring to ensure that quality remains paramount—IT can help laboratory staff rest easy. After all, technology can ensure that a key part of TAT is consistently and quickly taken care of, even if staff members are not present when results come in.

Automate critical result reporting 

In some cases, a faster TAT impacts urgent care needs, such as the decision to perform emergency surgery or to give a very specific medication. In other cases, routine tests may come back with critical results—indicating a serious health risk that needs to be addressed immediately. When clinicians need answers as soon as possible in order to best care for a patient, IT can offer solutions to remove delays and minimise TAT.

The IT system in our laboratory has preset triggers for critical values and specific tests that require urgent turnaround. When a result comes back for an urgent test, or a routine test comes back with critical results, the computer system immediately alerts the clinician and reports the results. By directly notifying the clinician when a sample exceeds critical values, TAT no longer has to involve time from a laboratory staff member who would otherwise have to review and report it. This allows faster communication of critical values and faster treatment of patients who may require immediate attention—all without any extra burden on laboratory staff.

Bring results and information directly to patients

Technology can also reduce the patient’s wait time for receiving their results, shaving time spent in the communication of results to our customers. One way to do this is with a patient portal on the internet or via a mobile app.

Our patient portal allows test values to be automatically released or uploaded so that patients can view their own results online as soon as they become available. For disease states that require frequent testing, such as cancer or diabetes, patients can access their information without waiting for a call from the lab or their doctor. Of course, the beauty of technology is such that abnormal or urgent results can be flagged before they get to the portal, which allows for a preemptive call to the patient to discuss the findings.

We also developed Chatbot for use with an artificial intelligence system, TANIA, which works via social media for patients who need information about the laboratory. TANIA stands for Tanya Prodia (Ask Prodia). The system can provide information such as where the nearest Prodia lab is, test details (including patient requirements for the test), prices, booking and reservation assistance, confirmation of whether the results have been completed, and even doctor consultations. With TANIA, customers can get information about the lab faster than before—in just seconds—and internally, we can reduce our response time to customers and the number of customer service staff handling the telephone.

Take the guesswork out of quality assurance

In addition to shaving off time spent communicating results at the tail-end of the laboratory testing process, IT can find ways to minimise TAT moving forward.

Our lab does daily, weekly and monthly monitoring of TAT. This helps us know how fast we are delivering results to patients and doctors. It makes our TAT predictable, so that we can give our customers realistic expectations.

IT also helps us keep a pulse on our daily and longer-term work. Any given day, we can see which tests or patient samples exceeded targeted TAT and investigate if we think the problem was avoidable. Likewise, we can track how many samples of each type we receive, how long they take on average, and how much variation there is.

When TAT data is available, we can easily align other resources—such as laboratory staff, new equipment purchases, or lean process evaluation—to tackle a problem.

Overall, keeping track of TAT with an IT system makes it easy to improve standardisation, increase predictability, drive resource realignment, begin targeted training or quality improvement projects, and reduce TAT.