Large Pathology Practice Reduces IT Complexity by Moving to the Cloud

Case Study

Benefits Achieved

HIPPA and SOC2 compliant

Relief that only a secure environment can produce

Reduced cost and effort to maintain a state of the art laboratory

Laboratory transparency with real-time metrics and data

Proactively manage and handle discrepancies when they do arise

Customer Profile

In business for over 40 years, our client is one of the largest diagnostic laboratories in the metro Phoenix area. They provide diagnostic services to hospitals, physician offices, surgery centers, laboratories, and other facilities. Our client provides testing services for Gastrointestinal, Cytopathology, Breast Pathology, Hematopathology, and Dermatopathology. With over 30+ pathologists on staff, our client is dedicated to sticking by its 24-hour turnaround policy.

Overcoming Challenges

Providing fast and accurate diagnoses is the cornerstone of our client’s business.

The laboratory knew in order to keep up with demands and maintain their competitive advantage, they had to focus on diagnosing specimens and not on managing complex IT infrastructures.

After selecting NovoPath as a vendor of choice, together the team performed a workflow health check to understand where they could “de-complicate” the IT landscape.

After much uncovering and digging, the requirements were set. The lab needed a cloud-based LIS that would:

Ensure HIPPA and SOC2 compliance
Enable top security features
Allow for access whenever and wherever
Integrate with all lab equipment and HIS systems including Epic and Cerner

Partnering with NovoPath

Partnered with NovoPath, together the teams created a phased approach to migrate to the cloud and with having as little interruption to everyday lab operations as possible.

To do so, the team migrated the old environment in a lift and shift strategy that allowed them to keep operations running and focus on redesigning the workflow after the environment was 100% stable.

Once tested and completed, the next phase, focused on configured key capabilities such as specimen tracking and discrepancy manager.

The lab’s current grossing process leveraged NovoPath LIS but didn’t utilize our specimen tracking capabilities. Ultimately limiting the lab’s visibility and reporting capabilities.

Introducing specimen tracking into the workflow allowed the lab to:

Identify a specimen’s location at any given point in time
Obtain a step-by-step view on the “custody of the specimen” from storage to disposal
Have a layer of patient safety using barcode technology by requiring two patient specimen identifiers when preparing slides
Measures the duration of each activity and the time specimen from accessioning to disposal
Provide data for measuring processes

In the final phase, the team focused on managing discrepancies directly in the NovoPath LIS platform. After configuration, the lab can now:

Easily record discrepancies
Gain the ability to categorize discrepancies for better reporting and analysis
Ensure discrepancy resolution properly and in a timely fashion
Prevent inaccurate resulting due to unresolved discrepancies
Easily manage discrepancy queues