Celebrating Excellence: The Role of Medical Laboratory Professionals in Health Care

In today's healthcare landscape, hospital systems face the daunting challenge of balancing quality patient care with financial performance. Amid this pressure, leaders often view the laboratory as merely a cost center to manage as opposed to a strategic asset. Some even contemplate selling their laboratories for an immediate cash infusion. However, data suggests that health systems that retain their lab service lines outperform those that relinquish control.

The insights gained from laboratory tests extend far beyond the confines of patient care, contributing significantly to the overall success of healthcare organizations. Laboratories drive operational efficiencies, spur innovation, and support the financial health of hospital systems.

Patient outcomes

Laboratories are indispensable to patient care, playing a pivotal role in the healthcare journey of nearly every patient. Mayo Clinic laboratories alone receive over 87,000 samples a day, underscoring not only the sheer volume but also the centrality of the clinical laboratory in healthcare delivery. The results, interpretations, and diagnoses laboratories provide are integral to patient care. Moreover, insights from the lab are critical to effective treatment plans. Tests can provide details to guide decisions on what treatment is more suitable, help manage chronic conditions, and assess treatment response.

Financial value

Beyond patient care, it is important to understand the financial importance of the laboratory. We recently analyzed financial data from Medicare Cost Reports on over 3,000 short-term acute care and children’s hospitals for a white paper on maximizing financial performance. The analysis suggests health systems that maintain control of their laboratories perform better financially than hospitals that relinquish control to outside entities. The financial impacts of retention are far-reaching and include revenue benefits, growth in lab charges and ancillary services, and greater management of overall expenses.

Laboratory professionals and leaders cannot assume that there is an appreciation of the laboratory as a key healthcare delivery and financial asset across their organization. They must demonstrate this value by establishing an ongoing feedback loop to share key metrics regularly and proactively, such as net revenue, profitability, and contribution margin. If these metrics are not reported, they might not be known, especially in a bundled payment environment. Laboratory leaders can also consider establishing an outreach laboratory to provide testing beyond their own hospital patients to bolster their contribution to their organization’s financial stability. 

Power of data

Financial metrics are not the only data generated by laboratories that are of value. The rich data generated from the thousands of lab tests processed can help drive operational efficiencies, not only in your lab but across your organization. For example, reviewing test volume data regularly for trends can inform broader provider education opportunities to reduce unnecessary testing and cost per diagnosis. 

The wealth of data can also help fuel innovation and quality improvement. As investigators and medical professionals increasingly leverage artificial intelligence tools and data analysis resources, laboratory-generated data is driving insights at an accelerated pace that leads to quality improvements and new treatments for both chronic and complex conditions.

Relationships

Nearly 9 in 10 infectious disease physicians emphasized the importance of onsite lab services for diagnostic reporting and collaboration according to a survey referenced in a white paper about hospital-owned labs. Many colleagues in other specialties recognize the proximity of the clinical laboratory as an essential element of patient-centered, team-based care. Readily accessible pathologists and lab experts to provide consultations on test ordering and interpretations foster an environment where staff feel supported and knowledge is shared for the benefit of all. Labs should leverage this by proactively engaging care teams to ask how to best support them and what new tests might be valuable. 

Further, if you operate an outreach lab, you support health care beyond your walls and bolster your organization’s contributions to the local health and economic well-being by offering good jobs in health care and keeping more care and healthcare funds local. This contributes to your organization’s reputation as a supporter of your community. 

An indispensable asset

The clinical laboratory is an indispensable asset with value that extends far beyond specimen testing and pathologic interpretations. Health systems that have integrated laboratories can, and should, leverage the insights generated by the laboratory to enhance operational efficiency, support clinical excellence, and contribute to the overall stability and success of the organization. Laboratories are not merely an ancillary service or expense to manage; they are a cornerstone for excellent care, healthcare advancements, and the financial health of hospital systems.