Top 7 Hospital Lab Irritations – and How to Avoid Them!

1. Pipette calibration
I suspect there are a few people out there who like calibrating pipettes, but many, many more that don’t. I can’t think of a more boring task. Don’t do it yourself, get the professionals in; they will probably do a better job, and you can get back to the work you trained to do.

2. Lost specimens
The ward nurse rings up looking for test results on a sample that you have not received. The nurse is adamant that the sample left the ward several hours ago; therefore the lab must have received it. Despite the fact that you have never laid eyes on the sample in question, it is always still your fault! Although some specimens will continue to vanish into thin air, a good pneumatic tube system can make life a lot easier. Modern tube systems have come a long way since my days in the lab as this case study shows.

3. Audits/SOP writing
Unless you are a Quality Manager, the chances are that SOP writing and carrying out audits are not your favourite tasks! You can’t avoid them completely, but make the audit and SOP process less painful by using a good quality management system.

4. Annoying bleep/pager on busy shifts
Traditional pager systems for out-of-hours contact or urgent calls are outdated and costly. The future for hospital communication could well be based on smartphone technology like this Smartpage idea from New Zealand. Read more about the future for smartphone applications in healthcare. The technology might improve, but we can’t stop you from angrily throwing it into the sharps bin again on a stressful shift!

5. Staff shortages
Many laboratories around the world struggle to provide a quality service with minimum staffing levels. I can’t solve this problem for you, but how about helping your staff to keep their cool with these infectious disease stress balls?

6. Doctors’ handwriting
Illegible patient history, undecipherable test requests... we have all struggled with appalling handwriting on request forms. Make life easier for everyone and use an electronic request system like ICE for all requesting and reporting. Systems like this can also be used to create networks between hospital clinicians and community primary care providers.

7. Middle of the night analyzer breakdown
This usually occurs when you are at your busiest, and often for no apparent reason; breakdowns can be extremely stressful especially if you need the analyzer to run a STAT sample. Regular maintenance as suggested by the manufacturer helps to prevent breakdowns, and the best suppliers have a 24-hour emergency hotline. In the absence of this, might I suggest that you turn it off and on again?


Image:“Caricature of a mad scientist” by J.J is licensed under GNU FDL