[Histonet] Wage and Productivity

[Cheryl]

Hi Tom-
   
  We staff traveling histologist (up to 50 on the road at a time) and I travel as a temp.  What the others say about taking samples and averaging the times of your techs is germaine.  I travel to different labs (over 40 labs in 25 years and counting) and I can cut anywhere between 25 and 75 blocks per hour depending on processing, tissue, protocols, instrumentation and automation.  
   
  The goal on collecting these averages be an acceptable range of time to accommodate all tissue types/cutting protocols and tech skills.  The idea behind averaging is to get a benchmark (metric) on how to manage workloads, not to push techs to cut more and faster.  That's when you start to get mistakes and repetitive motion injuries....not to mention unhappy campers who will start to look for new employment. 
   
  If you have a chance to go to other labs, often you can learn little tricks to pick up efficiency without compromising the quality or pushing past your tech's abilities. Each lab is different--not everything works in every lab.  It can be fun to try each different idea to see what does work for your lab.
   
  Hope this helps!
   
  Cheryl   


Cheryl Kerry, HT(ASCP) 
Full Staff Inc. 
Staffing the AP Lab by helping one Tech at a time. 
281.883.7704 c 
281.852.9457 o 
admin <@t> fullstaff.org 

Sign up for the FREE monthly newsletter AP News--updates, tricks of the trade and current issues for Anatomic Pathology Clinical Labs. Send a 'subscribe' request to APNews <@t> fullstaff.org. Please include your name and specialty in the body of the email.