Slide Presentation of the 2007 Annual Meeting of AHRQ

Purpose of Lean Implementation (continued)

• Lab expenditure represents 5% of total healthcare expenditure
• 70% of clinical decisions are based on lab information
• Lab medicine testing failures have major downstream implications
  • Pre-pre-analytic phase—choice of the test
  • Pre-analytic phase—performance of the test
  • Analytic phase—processing and analysis of the specimen
  • Post-analytic phase—reporting of the test result
  • Post-post-analytic phase—use of the test result in patient care