[Histonet] Re: Basis for Quality Work in a Histotech

[Bob Richmond]

Travis Troyer at Peterson Laboratory Servcies in Manhattan, Kansas
(Hey, one of my grandfathers was born there!) asks: >>This is a
question for all of the lab supervisors. I am the supervisor of two
histotechs. I am not doing techwork now, but have 10 years of
experience. The pathologists are getting more and more upset at the
lack of quality in the work and the mistakes that are happening. I was
wondering if anyone had some ideas on what sort of a goal to set up
and how to reward/punish for variations from that goal. For example,
if the goal is three mistakes for the month, what is the best way to
reward them for making that goal and what would be best if they had
more mistakes in a given time frame. We are all feeling the budget
crunch and the pathologists are trying to figure out a good
solution.<<

Well, speaking as a small-lab pathologist, what I'd want to do is tell
you exactly what the "lack of quality" and the "mistakes" I'm seeing
are. Some of them, like specimen mixups and errors in accessioning,
would be your problem to get right. With problems like bad microtomy
and faulty staining, I'd want to look at a lot of slides with you (a
double-headed microscope is needed for this purpose, and I'm guessing
you haven't got one). Then I'd want you to look at those slides with
your two histotechs. This daily process would go on for a long time,
perhaps permanently. If you were out of the office, I'd want to do the
daily review directly with one of the histotechs.

I hold the perhaps naive belief that people will do good work if they
have good equipment and know what's expected of them and get feedback
(both positive and negative. I'd a lot rather tell a histotech "Hey,
you really pulled this patient's diagnosis out of the fire for me"
than "This GI biopsy slide is so chattery I can't interpret it.")

One of the great follies of Good Management is that people are pairs
of hands who just need to be made to work-to-rule. If you don't know
who Edwards Deming was, look him up in Wikipedia.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Maryville TN