Tag Archives: Staffing

December 2023—The clinical laboratory at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is solving two problems at once: its phlebotomist staffing shortage and the need for some in its community to learn a new skill and obtain employment.

December 2023—For most, laboratory staffing woes continue, despite some letup post-pandemic. CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle on Nov. 7 got a sampling of where staffing stands as the year end approaches, in his conversation online with members of the Compass Group, an organization of not-for-profit IDN system lab leaders who collaborate to identify and share best practices and strategies. But first a few words from them about the Food and Drug Administration’s proposed rule on laboratory-developed tests.

November 2023—Few things in the laboratory can do so much at once: boost histotechnologist productivity, safeguard tissue, offer a career path and help retain staff, keep watch on test utilization, and reduce the number of calls to pathologists and turnaround time, all while advocating for the patient.

August 2023—Anatomic pathology laboratories—the pressures, the promise of technology to alleviate them, and the seemingly unprecedented rates of change. CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle gathered pathologists and company representatives online on June 21 to talk about it all. From pathologist coverage to IT, from tumor boards to questions job candidates in pathology should ask, here’s what they told us.

June 2023—The labor shortage may ease now and then for some laboratories in some areas, but the general outlook is that it will stick around for a while—if not forever.

June 2023—As CAP TODAY assembled its annual guides to chemistry and immunoassay analyzers (for this issue and the July issue), publisher Bob McGonnagle brought together IVD manufacturers and lab leaders to talk about consolidation and ever-larger health systems, technology, efficiencies, and centralized and decentralized testing.

April 2023—How is the demand for biomarker tests linked to new oncology drugs playing out in your health system? It is one of several questions laboratory leaders answered in a March 7 Compass Group call led by Stan Schofield, VP and managing principal of the Compass Group and formerly of NorDx/MaineHealth. That and digital pathology and the cost of storage, staffing and wages, the release of results, and the financial implications of the end of the public health emergency were the topics of the day. The Compass Group is an organization of not-for-profit IDN system laboratory leaders who collaborate to identify and share best practices and strategies.

March 2023—All in on staff retention and solving staff shortages, some made worse temporarily by weather. That’s where laboratories were when Compass Group members told CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle in their Feb. 7 call where hospitals and labs were aiming their efforts. From safety huddles and stay interviews to arranging for overnight stays and incentives, the work to remain sufficiently staffed continues. The Compass Group is an organization of not-for-profit IDN system laboratory leaders who collaborate to identify and share best practices and strategies.

February 2023—Point of care or core lab? An old question but a new conversation, this one on Jan. 12 between Stan Schofield, Brian Durkin, and CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle (asking the questions). Here’s what they said about that and health care economics, autoimmune testing, tube supplies—and, of course, the labor shortage because it affects nearly everything in health care.

November 2022—Burnout among Canadian pathologists is prevalent, pain related for some, and workload driven for many. “There needs to be more of us,” says Julia Keith, MD, associate professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto.

September 2022—Never a better time than now to switch from the medical technologist job title to medical laboratory scientist. So says John Waugh of Henry Ford Health System, where the job title was formally changed. “Because our people are scientists,” he explains. Waugh and other Compass Group members met online Aug. 2 with CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle, where they talked about the job title and testing for monkeypox.

August 2022—Higher wages help to fill open positions, when they can be offered, but in a labor market that’s as tight as ever, they’re often just a start. That’s why many laboratories are casting wider nets, though the hiring solutions tend to be long term.

August 2022—Running into the reality of staffing. Those are the words of a pathologist who said in the most recent Compass Group roundtable that its health system is making a push to obtain and test specimens “as close to home as possible.” Another Compass Group member said planning is underway for the new hospitals his system is going to build, “but we don’t know where staff will come from.” Here is what they and others told CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle on July 5.

July 2022—A time of tough choices. A complex dance. This is how Compass Group members on a call with their colleagues, led by CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle, describe what it’s like to cover outpatient centers amid severe staff shortages. “We are consuming significant resources to get all our locations staffed,” one member says. Another predicts: “We will not be out of this staffing situation for 10 years.” Here is more of what they and others talked about on June 7 as COVID positivity rates were up and monkeypox was in the news. The Compass Group is an organization of not-for-profit IDN system laboratory leaders who collaborate to identify and share best practices and strategies.

July 2022—Point-of-care versus centralized testing, and automation, IT, and staffing. It all came together as industry executives and a laboratory director and a former medical director met with CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle on May 25, as CAP TODAY’s list of chemistry and immunoassay analyzers was going together. “I don’t worry much about the machines or reagents,” thanks to good-quality practices, said André Valcour, PhD, MBA, DABCC, of Labcorp, who noted the real focus is quality of information and information transfer. Susan Fuhrman, MD, formerly of OhioHealth, said, “We should always give our clinicians as much information as we can accurately produce and our reports should be as clear as we can make them.” And of the staffing crisis: “We have a perfect storm,” she said. Here is more of what they and the others had to say.

June 2022—The effects of acute cannabis on driving performance and how impaired drivers can be detected will be reported at the AACC annual meeting July 24–28. Sessions on serum COVID-19 antibodies and lab workforce solutions are two more of the many that await attendees in Chicago.

May 2022—Opening and expanding schools—the path to a labor pool for labs. Compass Group members continue to move on that as they experiment with other solutions. “We’re exploring every avenue to bridge the staffing gap,” said Dhobie Wong of Sutter Health in a virtual roundtable with CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle on April 5.  

May 2022—The ineffectiveness of the U.S. health care system is well documented. The United States consistently allocates more resources for health care compared with other industrialized countries, while not holding the top spots for desired outcomes. A significant percentage of Americans is underinsured or uninsured, and access to quality care is widely asymmetrical among different racial and ethnic groups. Early in the pandemic, COVID-19 highlighted these health inequities in which Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and immigrants were the populations to disproportionately experience disparities related to burden of disease and mortality.

April 2022—Asked why he robs only trains, Richard Farnsworth’s Gentleman Bandit in The Grey Fox answers with a truth universally acknowledged: “A professional always specializes.” In line with that conviction, there’s little debate on the value of specialization in medicine—or, as it has evolved more recently, the extraordinary value of subspecialization in anatomic pathology. Many consider subspecialist signout to be the gold standard of review and diagnosis in pathology. Because they are dealing with a small number of pathologies, “the care that subspecialists can provide is phenomenal,” says L. Priya Kunju, MD, director of surgical pathology at University of Michigan Health. But in hospital practice at academic institutions like the University of Michigan, when it comes to time-sensitive frozen sections, subspecialization can have a downside. The need to return a diagnosis of a frozen section within 20 minutes while a surgery is in progress may require that an array of different subspecialists be close at hand, near the operating room.

April 2022—There are sudden crises like the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. And then there are the simmering crises that can be temporarily overshadowed but inevitably re-emerge to command notice. In New York and in many other states, the decades-long shortage of laboratory staff—especially medical technologists and histotechnologists—has gone from simmer to rolling boil.

April 2022—Staffing, supply chain, and significant supply price increases. Two continuing problems and one new. When Compass Group members met online March 1 with CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle, that trio of issues took center stage. Here’s what they had to say.

March 2022—Few people want to talk about burnout in health care—at least not publicly. Take, for example, the response of one laboratory professional, who, when asked to be interviewed for this story, waited several days before ultimately declining. Having his institution associated with the topic, he explained, could fan the flames among colleagues. “For sure all of us are feeling weary,” he said in an email (quoted with permission). “And I don’t want this in the face of our team members who are chronically short-staffed while seeing large hiring and retention bonuses going to nurses and others at the bedside. Those payouts are choking off access to capital for replacement equipment and causing every non-nursing position to go through a weekly labor committee review,” with finance leaders evaluating all replacement requests based on funding ability and productivity. “We all have some burnout,” he continued, noting the number of people retiring or trying new careers. The response ticks many boxes on the aspects-of-burnout list.

February 2022—New year, new variant. For Compass Group lab leaders on a call with CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle on Jan. 4, omicron was new but the struggles were similar. They spoke of staffing and supplies but also of the CDC’s day-five guidance, crisis planning, instrument downtimes and hard-to-get parts, and doing such things as limiting routine phlebotomy draw times for COVID-positive inpatients.

January 2022—“Still a pressure cooker and hotter now” and “grim.” Two comments that describe where some states were on Dec. 7 when Compass Group members met for their monthly call on COVID-19 and more—and this was before omicron spread in the United States.

December 2021—The staffing crisis lives on, despite labs having plans of all kinds in place to alleviate the shortage. “It’s the only thing we’re talking about,” Ochsner Health’s Greg Sossaman, MD, said on Nov. 2 when members of the Compass Group met by Zoom. SARS-CoV-2 testing and test supplies and vaccination are “taking a back seat” to staffing, he said.

December 2021—Four experts met on an Oct. 12 call to talk with CAP TODAY about urinalysis—the newest platforms, what labs need, labor solutions. CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle asked the questions. Providing their perspectives were Matthew Rhyner, PhD, MBA, Beckman Coulter; Jason Anderson, MPH, MT(ASCP), Sysmex America; Megan Nakashima, MD, Cleveland Clinic; and Keri Donaldson, MD, MSCE, Solvd Health and Penn State. Here’s what they had to say.

November 2021—Flexible scheduling to suit family life and new “lab associate” roles—two solutions in progress or in place in labs wrestling with the staffing shortage. That and precision medicine test pre-approvals and utilization were some of what Compass Group members talked about on Oct. 5 in a virtual roundtable led by CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle.

October 2021—Rules, slide reviews, test ordering, and provider education were part of the conversation when CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle convened a hematology-focused virtual roundtable in late August. Workforce problems too: “We have a bigger exodus now and our pipeline is smaller,” said Eric D. Hsi, MD, of Wake Forest University.  

September 2021—SARS-CoV-2 spread and the staffing shortage drove the conversation when Compass Group members met Aug. 3 for their monthly call led by CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle. “Like others, we were seeing problems before COVID, but COVID seems to have kicked it into overdrive,” Steven Carroll, MD, PhD, of the Medical University of South Carolina, said of the shortage. And more long term, it’s time to jump-start training programs, he and others say. The Compass Group is an organization of not-for-profit IDN system laboratory leaders who collaborate to identify and share best practices and strategies. Here is what they shared last month.

August 2021—From critical to worse is how two Compass Group members described the lab labor shortage on July 6 when the group spoke with CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle in another of their monthly virtual meetings. “Things imploded. We’re struggling in every area,” said one.

July 2021—Revenue and growth, cybersecurity, and labor and wage pressures were on minds June 1 when Compass Group members met virtually with CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle. But perhaps no problem felt heavier than the labor shortage.

June 2021—A brief update on SARS-CoV-2 variant testing and then a look at the latest on the laboratory labor struggle. That’s what Compass Group members provided when they spoke May 4 in another of their monthly calls led by CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle. “We’ve accepted that if we’re going to solve the [labor] issue,” said Sam Terese of Alverno Laboratories, “we’ll have to create the workforce. They’re not coming to us in any other way.” With McGonnagle and Terese were Bob Stallone and James Crawford, MD, PhD, Northwell; Sterling Bennett, MD, MS, Intermountain; John Waugh, MS, MT(ASCP), Henry Ford; Peter Dysert, MD, Baylor Scott & White; Steven Carroll, MD, PhD, Medical University of South Carolina; Stan Schofield, MaineHealth; Gregory Sossaman, MD, Ochsner; Clark Day, Indiana University; Diana Kremitske, MS, MHA, MT(ASCP), Geisinger; Julie Hess, AdventHealth; Terrence Dolan, MD, Regional Medical Laboratory; and Dan Ingemansen, Sanford. The Compass Group is an organization of not-for-profit IDN system lab leaders who collaborate to identify and share best practices and strategies. Here is what they said.

March 2021—Tackling staff shortages, urging vaccination, answering questions about serology testing, and raising questions about variants were some of what Compass Group members were doing when they spoke on Feb. 2 about COVID-19. “Staffing has continued to be a challenge, the greatest of which is phlebotomy staffing,” said Darlene Cloutier, MSM, MT(ASCP), HP, director of laboratory operations at Baystate Health, Springfield, Mass. “Our biggest pain point is laboratory technologists,” said Tony Bull, executive director, AdventHealth, Orlando, Fla. CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle led the roundtable.

May 2019—When Monica Rocheford and colleagues at Allina Health Laboratory first began digging into rising turnover rates at various locales within the system, the effort carried a whiff of concern, if not urgency. One hospital site had jumped from a 10.8 percent turnover rate in 2016 to 44.9 percent two years later. At another site, turnover reached 49 percent in 2018, from 24 percent the year before. The culprit appeared to be a three-letter word: pay. “That was the main reason they were giving us for their resignation,” says Rocheford, system director, laboratory operations, recalling the exit interviews with departing staff. So in 2018, Allina, with nearly 1,000 lab employees (spread across 12 hospitals, a core lab, and roughly 60 clinics in Minnesota and western Wisconsin), awarded a technical increase across the board.