U.S. HealthTek: Considering a New LIS? What You Need to Know
July 9, 2019
Enjoy the following content from our strategic partner, U.S. Healthtek.
Here at U.S. HealthTek, we’re seeing a greater interest in new and upgraded laboratory information systems (LIS). This is a little something I know about. When I started my career in the healthcare industry in the mid-1980s, one of my initial projects was to build a lab system for National Health Labs. It took us six months to design a system and another year to build the software that was to go into 19 locations. From initial conversations to total implementation, the whole process took five years. That project got especially complicated because just as we were finishing, the company merged and became LabCorp. We ended up carving up that system, and I believe to this day they still use part of it as a work-sheeting system. It’s one of the few things I did during the 1980s that is still relevant – unlike those Flock of Seagulls cassettes.
Why a new LIS? It’s a simple equation: Getting work in and results out quickly is really the most important aspect of the business. Doctors want the results, and patients deserve them, rapidly. Also, there is this: There was a lab I worked with in Virginia where a single day’s delay in turnaround was costing the company $1 million. They did that kind of volume. As I reflect back on the many organizations who we worked with, there are a couple of critical points that laboratories need to consider before implementing one today.
Operational Workflow Must Change. Tailoring a new LIS to an existing, rigid workflow culture is not practical. We always prepare clients to understand that the implementation of a system goes smoothest when there is an understanding that staff adaption will be required. Here is where a good project manager comes into play. You want to bring both sides together and get buy-in from the staff. Who can make this happen? An experienced project manager. What’s the two-word definition of what a project manager does? “Herding cats.” But it’s even more complicated than that…
Access the entire U.S. Healthtek blog post and read about the other four critical elements that laboratories need to consider before implementing a LIS.