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ORGANIZATION AND INSTITUTION FLOW
PATTERNS OF WORK
General Considerations:
Organizing and instituting flow patterns of clinical
laboratory work involve implementing the basic
responsibilities of management-planning, organizing,
coordinating, directing, and controlling.
These functions are interrelated and overlapping.
These Management Functions can be defined as follows:
1-planning is deciding what to be done and determining
the best way to do it.
The plan should answer the
It’s Essentials:
questions: what is to be
done, where is to be done,
 understanding the assignment
when is to be done, who will
do it, how it will be done,
 Developing A plan.
and why it is being done.
2- Organizing is arranging human and material
recourses to carry out a plan in the most efficient
manner possible.
3- Coordinating is the process of communicating with
others inside and outside the supervisors area of
control.
4- Directing is the process of implementing the planned
activities of the organization and using the recourses
in the actual operation.
5- Controlling is the process of comparing operations
with some measurable criteria to determine if these
activities are going according to the plan.
Clinical Laboratory Work Flow
Major steps of workflow:
Collection and Delivery of specimens.
Specimen receiving and entry into system.
Test Performance.
Recording and Reporting of results.
These major steps involve the application of the
managerial functions of the supervisor.
Collection and Delivery of specimens
An efficient acquisition and delivery of specimen workflow should
include:
1. Regularly scheduled blood collection runs with specified contingencies
for nonroutine requests.
2. A systematic delivery of specimens other than blood to the clinical
laboratory.
3. A formal system for requesting clinical lab. Procedure.
4. Standard methods of specimen delivery to the clinical lab. sections.
Blood and other specimens should arrive to the clinical lab. In a timely manner
to assure smooth flow of the testing process. An example of a schedule for
routine blood collection runs is 7:00 am, 11:00 am,3:00 pm, and 7:00 pm.
If the institution has a large number of critical care and special units, it is
usually necessary to make more frequent blood collection runs, these runs
should be on a different timetable than the routine collection runs.
Specimen receiving and entry into system
Steps carried out to receive a specimen:
Identification and Verification
Assigning of accession numbers to specimen and
request slip.
Preparation of log sheets and/or worksheets.
Preparation and aliquoting of sample.
The physical arrangement must be considered; the
logging process area should be adjacent to the
receiving area, with centrifuges and sinks conveniently
located.
Test Performance
An effective workflow patterns must include:
 The volume, variety and nature of procedures.
 The instrumentation used in the clin. Lab.
 The space and physical layout of the lab.
 The type of institution for which service is provided.
Clinical lab. Procedures fall into three categories:
 Procedures must be performed immediately because either their
nature or the demand for immediate results.
 Procedures that are performed more or less continuously.
 Procedures that can be deferred.
Test scheduling must be developed in such a manner that
the service provided meets the needs of those requiring it.
Communication plays an important role in the success or
failure of a plan to perform certain procedures on a
scheduled basis.
The most effective way to communicate this information
to physicians and nursing personnel is to maintain an upto-date floor book which includes all necessary
information (Table 2-1)
Recording and Reporting of results
Tow systems are necessary:
 1- a method of reporting stat results to the nursing unit
as soon as they are available. (By telephone or by
computer terminals).
 2- a method of systematic delivery of routine reports.