Clinical Laboratory Management

The health scenario in the country is changing rapidly due to changing disease patterns, technological developments, and patient-doctor expectations. Clinical labs play a very important role in the diagnostic phase of health care. More than 60 to 70 per cent of most important decisions on admission, discharge, and medication are based on lab test results. There is very rapid change in technology in lab sciences and costs of setting up and managing the labs are increasing.

Considering that labs will play increasing role in medical care and health, quality, reliability, cost effectiveness, and turnaround time of lab services become very important parameters of overall efficiency of health and medical care. The performance of a clinical lab is assessed by the turnaround time for giving reliable test results. Any delay in giving test results or unreliable results could have adverse implications on patients’ health.

Clinical labs need to invest more on medical and information technology, employ technically qualified staff, and closely monitor the lab operations in order to meet the increasing expectations from both the clinicians and the patients for a quick turnaround time for reliable test results. Success of labs in future would also increasingly depend on selecting appropriate markets and marketing strategies to provide services at affordable prices. It is, therefore, essential to equip lab managers with a basic understanding of challenges in managing the delivery of quality lab services at affordable prices to patients, desired timely and quality reports to physicians, and ensure adequate financial returns to the labs.

The main objective of this programme is to build the capability of lab managers (doctors and non-doctors) to enable them to manage their lab services efficiently and effectively using fundamentals of management.