Clinical perspectives on the modern laboratory

Clinicians depend daily on the clinical laboratory in the conduct of patient care. The modern clinical laboratory is a sophisticated network of people, machines, and processes tightly coupled with the clinicians it serves. The modern laboratory seeks to support a wide variety of encyclopedic information, collections, status information, and results effectively and efficiently. The modern laboratory integrates information management and quality improvement methods to retrieve and deliver needed information accurately and in a timely fashion. Ultimately, the modern laboratory achieves its information flow seamlessly, with the clinician improving overall cost-effectiveness of the health care system.