Healthcare is a giant with feet of clay

There is an increasing emphasis on using cost-effectiveness analysis to achieve a higher value for the money invested in the healthcare, avoiding waste and unnecessary costs. The process for achieving a better use of available resources should include five steps: collecting data, developing indicators, evaluating evidence, making informed decisions, and considering consequences. Clinical laboratories represent a paradigmatic model to improve data collection in order to develop further steps of the improvement process. Here we describe the experience of the "e-Valuate" project, aiming to improve the collection of laboratory data to provide useful information that should be the foundation for all other steps of this improvement project.