Growing Workload and Declining Staff
Automation Proves the Perfect Solution for PinnacleHealth.

After the 1996 merge of two area hospitals—and the later addition of a third— PinnacleHealth in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was facing some serious growing pains.

The laboratory was still split between two hospital campuses, causing duplication of processes and personnel. The dual-lab model not only required frequent transportation of staff and materials between sites, it often caused staff productivity and test turnaround times to suffer.

Plus, the health system was experiencing a significant increase in testing caused by its outreach and expansion efforts—reaching a total of 2.4 million tests billed annually.

Further complicating matters was an increasing absentee rate among the lab's aging workforce and the shortage of available, trained medical laboratory technologists to replace retirees.

Ultimately, PinnacleHealth decided to consolidate both labs in a newly constructed 30,000 square foot building located on its Harrisburg campus in downtown Harrisburg—an open core lab design that could address all the lab's needs through automation.

Enter Automation

“The main reason we wanted automation wasn't because of the amount of tests we run, but rather our aging workforce,” said Administrative Director Judy Darr, MS, MT (ASCP) DLM. “We realized that many employees will eventually leave or retire and we needed a way to fill the anticipated void.”

Central to the lab's new plan was the Power Processor Core System, a fully customized robotic line that automates front-end sample processing, chemistry, immunology, urinalysis and specimen storage. This system efficiently connects the lab's clinical analyzers—two LX®20 clinical systems, a UniCel®DxI 800 immunoassay system and a Bayer Atlas urinalysis system. The lab also utilizes a standalone Access® immunoassay system and SYNCHRON CX®4 clinical system, which are not connected to the automation line.

“I've been around a long time and have seen a lot of manufacturers come and go,” said Darr, “but we knew Beckman Coulter had a proven track record with hundreds of installed units around the world. Plus, we were always pleased with our Beckman Coulter instrumentation and the Power Processor had all the features we required. It was definitely the right fit for our lab.”

Process Improvements

After the lab went live with its Power Processor core system in December 2005, it began to see dramatic improvements.

“Right off the bat, automation started improving our testing consistency—which has led to fewer phone calls from physicians,” said Darr. “Today, most visitors comment on the fact that our phones aren't ringing. That's because all the physicians know when to expect their results—and that our automation line keeps all the samples moving consistently.”

Not only are the phones relatively silent, so is the entire lab environment.

“Today, visitors see a lab that is organized, quiet and calm—mainly because people aren't running around trying to get things done and specimens moved from here to there,” said Darr. “The fact that the workplace is now calm, instead of chaotic, makes a big difference in the attitude of our staff members. Our lab is a very smooth-running ship right now.”

Another improvement was in the search for patient samples. Before automation, Lab Manager Doug Schreffler says staff members spent a collective six to eight hours each day looking for specimen tubes that needed repeat or add-on tests.

“We had to look through thousands of tubes until we found the one we needed,” he said. “Now we simply program the add-on test and the automation system immediately pulls the exact sample from the stockyard and places it on the correct instrument line for testing. This feature alone was worth every penny we paid for the system.”

The lab also decreased testing turnaround time (TAT) from receipt to result by 14 minutes—from 49 to 35 minutes—and the median TAT time for ER specimens by 17 minutes—from 41 minutes to 24 minutes.

And since the adoption of the automation system, the lab witnessed a natural attrition of more than 11 full-time equivalents (FTEs)—without needing to find replacements.

Reaping the Rewards

Thanks to the automation system in place at PinnacleHealth system, the lab has standardized the entire specimen handling and testing process—essentially streamlining the flow of the entire laboratory.

Not only does the automation line prepare all the samples for on-site testing, it also prepares and sorts all of the tests going to the hospital's reference lab—whether they be room temperature, refrigerated or frozen.

“Today, we are approximately four FTEs ahead of schedule and staff reduction, volume and productivity have increased, compared to budget,” says Darr. “We're doing amazingly well.”

To date, all of PinnacleHealth system's standards of success have been met or exceeded with its new laboratory automation system, employee morale has improved and the number of applicants for staff vacancies has increased. Most importantly, the PinnacleHealth system now has a laboratory that will provide safe, quality services to the people of central Pennsylvania for years to come.