Whenever you need to go to the doctor, they often order blood work or other samples to be processed. Some doctors have laboratory space inside their offices, while others must send their samples to a commercial lab. In some cases, medical facilities may seek commercial labs for specialty tests that every laboratory doesn’t do due to their infrequent need and specificity. You may be curious about what types of equipment or processing methods are used by professional laboratory services.

According to CMS, the CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments) set federal safety standards for lab safety in 1988. Every facility with laboratory space must adhere to the CDC’s (Center for Disease Control) infection control regulations. The most essential equipment in any medical laboratory is the autoclave sterilizer. In addition, lab technicians must use personal protective equipment, including gloves, gowns, and goggles.

Although the laboratory’s purpose involves extensive processing skills and a multitude of testing methods, it cannot safely operate without meticulous instrument sterilization and strict adherence to infection control regulations. An autoclave sterilizer is essential for any laboratory facility, especially smaller laboratories that may need to reuse equipment more often. Each lab must provide several staff handwashing stations and proper receptacles for hazardous waste.

In order to understand what is going on in your laboratory, you need to understand exactly what needs to be going on in order for it to be efficient. It isn’t enough to have a quality syringe pump or the proper immersion coolers or connections to the best scientific equipment suppliers.

When it comes to efficiency in a laboratory, there are three levels that dictate it: people, process, and equipment. When you have all three of these things in place, you can then understand how a lab is either doing all it can do to work smoothly or what you need to pay attention to so that it will.

People

Like any great enterprise, a quality lab is nothing without the people who work in it. Your scientists might come from all over the world, doing what they know how to do best in an effort to try and make the world a better place for everyone to live in. If you create a lab in which your scientists can work smarter and not harder, you are going to increase more than just efficiency; you will increase productivity, as well.

Process

You might tend to relate increased efficiency with shortcuts. That is not a good model. Cutting a syringe pump here or there from an equipment order will not be a good solution. Efficiency is simply managing time and resources effectively. To run a laboratory effectively is to have effective project management skills. You must balance scope, cost, and time. If you can put tools in place to get that done, you are on your way to the type of lab you desire.

Equipment

In the United States, the commercial and diagnostic laboratory industry consists of somewhere in the neighborhood of 13,500 establishments. They are stocked with different types of equipment that enable their scientists to do the jobs they need to do. A syringe pump here and a new era pump system there could be the difference between a breakthrough and continuing at the status quo.

In addition, safety equipment in place at the right places cannot be overstated as something extremely important to an efficient and effective laboratory. For example, there are four types of chemical fume hoods: Conventional hoods, Bypass Fume Hoods, Auxiliary Fume Hoods, and Specialty Hoods. Knowing which of these hoods your lab will need and how to get them installed properly will be important to start with and for as long as your lab is in operation.

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