LabMind

A restaurant delivery or car ride can be ordered easily from your smartphone. Why not phlebotomy services when you need your blood drawn? This is the question Mike Eller asked a colleague back in 2018. Then, with some tech and marketing collaboration, they made it happen. In this discussion, Jim Crawford, Eller, and Chris Zavala explain the origin of their LabFly mobile phlebotomy service, its critical role in supporting telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how it positions Northwell Health Laboratories for the patient-centric care of the future.

Health systems wishing to reduce overall healthcare costs would do well to focus less on direct laboratory costs and more on the meaningful ways laboratories can impact clinical efficiency. In this interview, Rick Panning, who served as Senior Administrative Director for Laboratory Services at HealthPartners in Minnesota, describes his work to reduce the total cost of care through improved testing service levels, saving money while improving the patient experience.

Clinical laboratory science might just be the most invisible of all the healthcare professions. Maddie Josephs, president of the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science, is trying to change that. In this interview she explains why many Millennials and Gen Z individuals feel drawn to this field, and describes some of the barriers to expanding the ranks of clinical laboratory scientists to meet this country’s growing healthcare needs.

Clinical laboratories were hit hard when COVID-19 erupted in the United States last spring. Labs scrambled to develop and ramp up COVID-19 testing while facing PPE shortages, the need to keep staff infection free, and sharp drops in revenue due to patients delaying routine care and elective procedures. In this interview, Dr. Jon Genzen, COO of ARUP Laboratories, describes a few of the many ways ARUP quickly and successfully adapted to this unfamiliar and challenging environment.

Despite what the general public seems to think, laboratory tests don’t just run themselves. They require an educated workforce of clinical laboratory scientists. Maintaining this highly skilled workforce is challenging, especially since few young people are even aware of the laboratory science career path. In this interview, Diana Wilkins and Takara Blamires share their experiences recruiting young people into the medical laboratory science program at the University of Utah, and Misty Smith explains the intricacies of recruiting for a national reference laboratory.