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Riverside Health System is a network of five individual hospitals. The core lab, Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, Virginia, performs 3.5 million tests annually for its 450-bed facility and operates 24/7.

Challenge: 
Whether it was labor-intensive management of varied instrumentation, a lack of standardization in processes and decision rules or pending staff reductions due to retirements, challenges amounted for the growing network. Increasing test volumes, largely driven by outpatient business and heightened emphasis on specimen tracking and patient safety, added to the concerns.

Solution:

  • Power Processor Sample Handling System
  • Two UniCel DxC 800 clinical chemistry analyzers
  • Two UniCel DxI 800 immunoassay analyzers
  • 3,000-tube stockyard
  • REMISOL Advance Middleware
Results:
  • Accommodated a testing volume that doubled between 2010 and 2013 without adding Full-time Equivalent

  • Decreased TATs and reduced the number of outliers with REMISOL Advance Middleware, autoverification, external quality control (EQC) and exponentially weighted moving averages (EMWA)
    • Reducing error rate by 40% with EQC
    • Reducing average TAT from 39 to 29 minutes
    • Improving service consistency to the ED
  • Reduce costs and add revenue
    • Added immunofixation electrophoresis, without a rise in headcount, for $56,000 in revenue
    • Reducing staff overtime by 10% in the first month
    • Reallocating resources to save the cost of half an FTE
    • Saving $8,000–$10,000 annually by going paperless
    • Saving $70,000 through automated vitamin D testing