By Brian Dapp
OpEx, Inc.
03/17/08

The average age of your current Medical Technologist (MT) workforce is increasing and competition is stiff to hire new candidates.
Even if you win the recruiting battle, some MTs become disenchanted with the position and move on or quit the field altogether.
Many become frustrated and feel their skills and knowledge are not being utilized. Some cite the high stress levels as another reason
for quitting. In the meantime, you start the never-ending search again and wonder what has changed with "today's generation."Never
mind that at one time we were "today's generation." However, did you ever really sit back and see how the MT's time is spent?

We have done just that on many occasions and the results can be eye opening. Go buy a cheap video camera and follow an MT for a
day (if you can keep up). Draw a picture of everywhere they walked. We call this a point-to-point or spaghetti diagram with an
example shown below. What do you see? They walked to find supplies, they walked to get information or clarification, they walked
to a trashcan, to a computer, to a printer, and on we go.

This isn't an entire day but rather just a few minutes! What do you think frustrates a technologist more, doing the job they trained to
do or wasting time searching for supplies, information, and the tools they need to perform their job? Now take this a step further and
start documenting where all the time goes including the walking. How much time was spent waiting either on information, someone
else, or simply watching that new and very expensive automated instrument while it works? Let's go a step further. How much time is
spent on tasks that don't really take a technologist? Ordering and restocking supplies or even loading specimens onto the analyzer or
into the centrifuge. We could go on and on, but the bottom line is how much time was actually spent performing the job for which the
medical technologist was trained and was expecting to perform when you hired them? We performed one such study with the results
shown in the table below.

The "Base" time is how long on average a technologist spent per specimen. The "New" time takes into account rearranging the work
area to improve the process and moving tasks to the Technical Lab Assistant. As can be seen in the "Totals" section, the potential
improvement in total time is impressive with the technologist's time saved being even greater. Now I'm sure the next question on your
mind is how is this possible and the answer is the application of the Lean methodology. I'm often asked that if this is really possible
why aren't more people doing it. My answer is that it is a lot of detailed hard work and while more people are beginning to apply the

Lean methodology to the laboratory environment, the level of success varies widely. Most of which can be attributed to the proper
(or improper) selection and application of Lean tools and not the tool itself.

Bottom line, there is a lot that can be done now to better utilize the medical technologist's time while at the same time improving the
work environment. Granted it takes a lot of hard work to get there, but what is the better alternative?

Process Improvement in the Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory: How to Optimize Efficiency in the Diagnostic Setting

Reducing Stress and Better Utilizing Your MT's Time