Every lab owner has experienced the following: It's the beginning of the rainy season, so there are more dengue and typhoid cases, and the waiting room is packed by 8:00 AM. There's a backlog of sample tubes, reports are running late, the phone won't stop ringing, and your staff is stressed out.
The seasonal spike in test volume should be anticipated. These spikes happen every year, yet most pathology/diagnostic labs continue to treat each spike as an emergency and fail to anticipate the spike. There is no difference in how lucky certain labs are in managing the seasonal spike. Instead, some labs have a better plan for managing the seasonal spike.
This document is designed for owners of diagnostic and pathology laboratories, lab managers, operations directors and the owners of collection centers and/or franchises. This document will outline how to manage your laboratory's capacity to maximize your revenue during peak periods and minimize damage to your brand image.
Why Seasonal Surges Strain Your Lab
Testing demand is rarely flat through the year. Common patterns include:
- The use of panels to test for dengue, malaria, typhoid, and viral fevers is expected to grow significantly during the rainy season (June through September).
- Winter: Flu, respiratory infections, and related panels go up.
- Health check-ups campaigns (i.e. corporate tie-ups, annual health check-up campaigns and festive season promotions) have the potential to produce numerous samples in a relatively brief time frame.
- Local camps and local outbreaks: A single camp at a school, social group or business, may result in an increase in the number of hours you work each day.
An increase in volume beyond your present capacity has three main effects on TAT, accuracy, and patient satisfaction. Waiting for results or making errors when labeling samples are much more expensive than what you might have made if you had completed the same amount of work within your available hours.
Step 1: Forecast Demand Using Your Own Data
You do not need complex models. Start by looking at last year’s numbers.
- Check month-wise and week-wise test volumes for the past 12 to 24 months.
- Identify which tests spike in which season.
- Note the busiest days of the week and busiest hours of the day.
- Create additional growth through opening of more collection centers, franchising of existing collection centers, and/or contracting with large corporations.
If you are storing your records in different locations like registers or spreadsheets, then you will most likely have difficulty completing this portion of the process. A laboratory information management system(LIMS)can be used to store all of the data that relates to every patient, every sample, every test, and every report; therefore, providing you with a quick way to view trends over time with only a few mouse clicks as opposed to many days.
Step 2: Plan Your Workforce Before the Rush
The primary restriction on your operating capability is people. Your equipment has the ability to run all day long, but your employees do not.
- Train all members of your team (phlebotomists, receptionists, and technicians) to help out other members of your team during periods of increased workload.
- You may want to change your employee's work hours so they match their most active times instead of keeping the exact same employee schedule all year long.
- Hire temporary or part-time staff before your busiest period. If you wait until you are experiencing a high volume of business, it will be too late to train new employees.
- Protecting employees is essential. When employees have been working a great deal, it increases the likelihood of making errors. Provide employees with an opportunity to take breaks and switch jobs when there is a significant amount of work to be done in a short period of time.
Step 3: Stock Reagents and Consumables Early
When there is a lot of demand for chemicals, and one chemical runs out, it could stop an entire series of tests from being run in a lab. Good planning will prevent such issues by having:
- Estimating consumption based on forecasted test volumes, plus a safety buffer.
- Placing orders early, since suppliers also face higher demand in peak season.
- Tracking expiry dates so you do not waste stock.
- An alternate source for your highest priority items (collection tubes, kits, control materials) will act as a backup.
With current modern laboratory management software, you will be able to keep track of your inventory levels and the software will notify you when these levels reach a predetermined minimum level that you set. Therefore, you may order more supplies before they become low enough to cause issues.
Step 4: Check Equipment Capacity and Maintenance
- Machines that were fine in a slow month may struggle at double the load.
- The preventive maintenance and calibration schedule must be finished before the season begins, not during it.
- What is the most samples that each analyzer can run in an hour and/or in a day?
- Have another option available like using a reference lab, or purchasing a 2nd analyzer for emergency testing.
- Review the processes that you use for quality control. With the higher number of products being made, there is a higher probability that you may skip some quality controls.
Step 5: Streamline Sample Collection and Registration
Most of the problems with bottlenecks happen at the front desk and collection areas as opposed to being located within the laboratory.
- Offer online booking and time slots to spread patient arrivals.
- Promote home collection to reduce crowding at your centre.
- Use barcode labelling for every sample to prevent mix-ups.
- Ensure that you have set out clear guidelines on how to handle samples at all of your collection points and franchises, as well as when these samples should be moved.
If your organization has several different laboratory locations, you'll be able to view sample volumes for all of those locations in real-time with a centralized lab management system. When you need to, you'll have the option to move samples from one collection site to another as long as the second site has the ability to accept more samples.
Step 6: Protect Turnaround Time
The main method by which both physicians and patients assess the performance of your laboratory is through the speed and accuracy with which your results are provided. To assist with maintaining Turn-Around Time (TAT) when there has been an increase in testing volume:
- Prioritise urgent and critical tests with clear rules.
- Batch routine tests at planned intervals.
- Automate report generation and verification wherever possible.
- The patient can receive their printed report through e-mail or WhatsApp rather than coming to get it.
Step 7: Use the Right Technology
When work levels are low, manual methods are capable of functioning. During times of heavy work loads, however, manual methods tend to break down quickly. Using handwritten logs, inputting the same information into different systems several times, and billing clients manually can lead to delays and errors at the most inopportune time for your company.
The right pathology lab software can help you:
- Register patients and generate barcodes in seconds
- Track every sample from collection to final report
- Connect with analysers to reduce manual result entry
- Create accurate bills and reports automatically
- Send reports directly to patients and doctors
- View dashboards of daily workload, pending reports, and revenue
If your company has many locations where collections take place, or if you operate through multiple franchises, you may find that diagnostic center management software is an effective tool to give you a single view of your entire organization. Using diagnostic center management software can help make it easier to monitor the workload of each of your locations, evaluate how well each location is performing, and verify that every one of your locations is delivering the same quality of service to customers.
When choosing laboratory software, you should determine if the software will be easy for your staff to use; if the software can integrate with other laboratory equipment such as analyzers; if the software will produce accurate reports; if the software will protect your data; and if the software will fit into your budget, depending on whether you are running a smaller or larger sized lab. The purpose of a good quality laboratory management system is to reduce the workload of your employees, rather than create additional employee training issues.
Step 8: Avoid These Common Mistakes
- Planning only after the surge has begun
- Ignoring staff fatigue and burnout
- Relying on a single supplier for critical reagents
- Skipping equipment maintenance before peak season
- Using disconnected tools for billing, reports, and inventory
- Not reviewing what worked and what failed after the season ends
Step 9: Review and Improve After Every Season
Once the rush has subsided, take some time to sit down with your group to look back at the information you gathered (Average TAT, Report Errors, Out of Stocks, Staff Overtime, Patient Feedback). Take the things that worked well, or didn't work so well, and develop a stronger plan for the next year. Capacity planning is something that should be done every single year.
Quick Seasonal Surge Checklist
- Reviewed last year’s test volume data
- Forecasted demand for the coming season
- Finalised staff shifts and backup support
- Ordered reagents and consumables with a safety buffer
- Completed equipment maintenance and calibration
- Set up online booking and home collection slots
- Confirmed your laboratory information system and reporting workflow
- Informed collection centres and franchise partners about the plan
Final Thoughts
Seasonal spikes in business can help you build customer loyalty. Laboratories who are able to deliver their reports on time and accurately throughout the entire year, especially during those weeks when there is a spike in business, will have developed loyal customers and physicians. The simple formula is as follows: forecast the number of orders; train your team members; buy supplies strategically; ensure your equipment remains in good working order; and utilize technology to allow all aspects of your operations to communicate effectively.
MargLabz offers a laboratory management software that was created for use by diagnostics and pathology labs, collection sites, and franchises to prepare their laboratories to be "surge ready". MargLabz has plans beginning at ₹999/month plus applicable GST.