What Are Laboratory Key Performance Indicators?
Laboratory Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are key metrics that provide transparency within your laboratory, help avoid pitfalls, and contribute to achieving your overall business objectives.
At NovoPath, our clients use these essential lab metrics to assess the performance of their IT systems, equipment, interoperability, staff, and everything in between.
By monitoring laboratory KPIs in real-time, our clients are becoming more proactive and detecting unforeseen issues or fixing them quickly, reducing the overall impact on the lab and improving operational efficiency.
The Need for KPIs in Molecular Laboratories
Molecular workflows are complex and have traditionally been difficult to automate and optimize. However, the need to reduce operating costs has never been greater, and to optimize any workflow, particularly a molecular one, you start with real-time benchmarks.
Whether you’re a lab that has been performing anatomic testing for years and is looking to expand into molecular testing, you’re starting up a new lab, or you’re only performing next-generation sequencing, this blog is for you. The following key lab metrics in laboratory operations are important to understand and adopt in your lab.
43 Laboratory Key Performance Metrics to Monitor
Business KPIs
Business Key Performance Indicators serve as leading indicators of how the overall laboratory business is running and assessing performance. Are you making enough money to grow? Can you invest in offering additional tests? Can you hire more lab personnel? These higher-level business KPIs provide the lab data needed to make important business decisions.
- Monthly, quarterly, and yearly orders
- Revenue, month over month and annually
- Revenue per sample/analysis
- The total cost of sample analysis for each test performed
- Quality control failures
- Customer satisfaction
- Customer retention
- Downtime and response times
- Overall turnaround times
Lab Operations KPIs
- Accuracy of patient identification at the time of specimen collection
- Accuracy and completeness of examination/test requests
- Numbers and sources of, and reasons why, specimens do not meet the laboratory’s acceptance criteria
- Specimens lacking sufficient quantity at the examination
- Purity of extraction control
- Concentration of extraction control
- Number of and reasons for repeat examination, by examination
- Number of times and reasons for failures of calibration materials or controls for given lab instruments or test systems
- Number of times and reasons for technical failures of a given instrument or test system
- Number of samples per batch or run, or stat samples
- Number of label errors
- Number of specimens in the wrong containers
- Samples lost
- Completeness of laboratory reporting of critical values
- Numbers and types of reporting errors
- Turnaround Time (TAT) on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis
Quality Control KPIs
- Sample identification errors
- Sample type errors
- Sample filling orders
- Sample transportation errors
- Calibrator errors
- Errors with controls
- Sample testing errors
Interoperability KPIs
- Number of transactions
- Quality of data exchanged
Billing KPIs
- Unbilled claims
- Error or denial by the client
- Average time from requisition to payment
- Average payment received per accession
- Days in A/R
- Payor reimbursement time
- A/R over 90 Days
- Claim denial rate
- First-pass acceptance rate
NovoPath’s Laboratory Information Management System Makes Tracking KPIs Easy
NovoPath LIS supports molecular labs with out-of-the-box management reports that provide any lab complete transparency into their operations.
Stacked with patient-centric, business management, and lab reports, see how our clients stay on top of the busiest labs with NovoPath 360. Some of our out-of-the-box reports include:
If you’re ready to understand more about your lab’s operations and implementing key performance indicators, start by scheduling a demo of NovoPath.
