Human Sustainability in Pathology Medical Laboratory Workforce

While having a dedicated and productive workforce is the cornerstone of a functioning society, the key is sustainability. Allied health laboratory burnout, characterized by mental exhaustion which negatively affects workplace performance, has worsened during the COVID pandemic. For purposes such as these, the issue must be addressed to ensure that the US will have an adequate workforce to meet the laboratory testing needs of an aging population and any potential future pandemics that may arise. The answer to reducing toxic or challenging workplace environments and improving human workforce sustainability is through transparency and anonymous reporting mandates so the data collected from individual laboratories can be reported as a single "human sustainability" score that reflects the health measure of the laboratory. The 10 laboratories with the highest scores could be listed in the laboratory professional magazine's version of "America's Most Admired Laboratories" and the worst performers in the "Improvements-Needed" listing. Companies are inherently competitive, and this forces laboratories to be more cognizant of workforce well-being and the rate of burnout and work-related chronic conditions. This article outlines how the human sustainability advocacy plan can be implemented using ideas gleaned from Bardach's eight-fold path paradigm.