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Article: Evaluating Laboratory Performance With the Six Sigma Scale.
- Article from:
- Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
- Article date:
- December 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 College of American Pathologists. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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To the Editor.--I read with interest the article by Nevalainen and colleagues[1] on clinical laboratory quality. Several points come to mind.
The economic environment in which most clinical laboratories currently function is not friendly. Laboratories operate under stringent budgets. Personnel are worked to the limit and have little time to think creatively about problems and improving systems. Managers are overloaded with responsibilities. Revenue per unit of work continues to shrink (eg, the 2001 Medicare budget calls for further reductions in payments to laboratories). Meanwhile, overhead attributable to regulatory requirements keeps increasing. Clinical ...