Realistic technician staffing requirements in a histopathology laboratory via an innovative workload method

It is well recognized that efficiency is one of the most important objectives of clinical governance. The correct determination of personnel required plays a central role in health economics. Inadequate staffing of clinical laboratories may compromise quality and throughput, whereas excess staff can uselessly increase costs. This study was undertaken to determine the most reliable and easily applicable method for determination of staffing requirements in a histopathology laboratory.

Three published methods, namely the weighted workload model, standard time-based and audit benchmarking methods, were compared. The strengths and weaknesses of each method is described with the purpose of identifying the best approach.

There are only three relevant published methods, and even these are not appropriate for current requirements. In particular, they may be based on data that is not readily available (calculation of standard time) or may use outdated patterns (using weighted workload) or nonstatistical benchmarks. Although benchmarking was widely used in U.S. even in a period of a crisis in this area in the late 1990s, its major flaw consists of excluding the most influential variables.

In summary, we tried to formulate a new method based on organizational activities and their categorization into sub-activities, each of which contributes to the calculation of the total time required to perform all activities and accurately determine the number of technicians required.