Body Fluid Processing Workspace Quality Improvement Initiative in a High-Volume Reference Laboratory

In a clinical laboratory, the design of the workspace directs the workflow and significantly affects the productivity of clinical laboratory scientists (CLS). With the chronic shortage of CLS, a well-designed workspace is essential to take full advantage of available staff, especially in high-volume laboratories.

Through the use of quality improvement tools, a manual body fluid testing workspace was redesigned to address weaknesses in the layout that led to excessive physical steps taken by staff.

System engineering tools such as a fishbone diagram, spaghetti diagrams, Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles, and a counterbalance measure were all used in a CLS-led quality improvement initiative to redesign a workspace in the manual body fluid processing area of a clinical laboratory at Mayo Clinic.

After the redesign, physical steps taken and time to process body fluids were reduced by an average of 40% and 32%, respectively, demonstrating the utility of quality improvement tools in clinical laboratory settings.