The Biographic Data of the Area for Hospital

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Health care organizations are obligated to not only provide sufficient health care service but also to plan in anticipation for the future. Thus it is very important for any hospital or health care organization to have a clue about the quality and quantity of patients they expect to serve in order to provide them with the most appropriate health care. One of the most important tools to estimate the quality and quantity of patients for a hospital involves knowing the biographic data of the area they serve.

As such hospitals have to continually work hand in hand with the relevant authorities while updating their demographic data. I will give a brief biographic data about Williamsburg city where Ms. Karen Barry, the manager of Laboratory Department in Sentara hospital, works.

Williamsburg’s Sentara Medical Center mainly serves patients living in Williamsburg city. This is an independent city located on the Virginia Peninsula in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of Virginia Williamsburg (Sentara, 2011). The city is bordered by James City County and York County (City official site, 2011). Williamsburg city has a population of 12,729. Since 2000, the city has maintained a constant population growth rate of 6.1 percent. The percentage of males in the city is 44.3% while that of females is 55.7%.

The median age of residents is 22.6 years. Persons under the age of 5 years constitute 6.8% of the population; persons between 5 to 18 years old make up another 14.4%, and persons above 65 years old constitutes 16.4% of the population. In terms of ethnicity, about 79.8% of the population in the city is made up of the whites, 13.1% African Americans, 0.3% American Indian and Alaska Natives,4.9% Asians, 0.1% Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, and 3.6% Hispanics/ Latinos. Other important data that would assist the health care organization in determining the services distribution is that the city’s land area is 8.54 miles square, with about 1333 persons per square mile (U.S Census, 2009).

Karen Bray is currently a Laboratory manager at the Williamsburg’s Sentara Medical Center. At the beginning of her Education path she failed to secure an admission to pursue her studies in Organic Chemistry. Undeterred, she joined a 12 month training Lab. Assistant program (SLA) in a general hospital where she worked for 18 years as a Laboratory Technician. Thereafter, Karen decided reapply for admission for a course in Organic Chemistry and this time, she was successful.

Upon graduating with a bachelor degree in Organic Chemistry, Karen decided to join the Public Health graduate program in Eastern Virginia Medical School. In 1999, she obtained her master in Public Health. Twice, she applied for a management position and twice, her application was declined. Nonetheless, she kept working hard to improve her management skills by getting exposed to the different departments in the hospital, other than within the confines of the laboratory. In 2004, Karen secured her current position at the Williamsburg’s Sentara Medical Center. She supervises about 100 employees in three different locations. They have about 200 different laboratory tests in house.

The scope of Ms. Barry’s responsibilities as the manager of the Laboratory department at the Williamsburg’s Sentara Medical Center involves taking charge of the overall operations and administration of the laboratory.

These responsibilities include planning for recruitment, identification, interviewing, and training of potential, qualified and competent personal. Besides these duties, Ms. Barry is also responsible for establishing the centre’s human resource needs for the future and implementing the relevant strategies to prepare the institution against any future employee shortfall. Mentoring and coaching staff to achieve maximum performance levels and corporate goals, performing employee performance appraisals, establishing goals and areas of improvement, interviewing and hiring new employees with the help of human resources, and ensuring that the staffs are adequately trained are some of the additional responsibilities of Ms. Barry.

Other duties include administering disciplinary actions to the staffs when required, developing and presenting continuing education material and training material, developing competency assessment criteria for your assigned area of responsibility and assisting the Associate Director of Operations with identifying capital expenditure needs. In addition, Ms. Barry also has to foster teamwork amongst the employees as an efficiency enhancing strategy.

Besides the human resource duties, she is also responsible for the development of laboratory service in the hospital so as to ensure that it is well equipped with the relevant equipment and that the quality system approach to laboratory testing provides accurate and reliable patients’ results. This task also involves assessing the test equipment with the help of hospital technicians to make sure that the equipment is always operational. As the laboratory manager, she therefore oversees the maintenance of laboratory equipment to ensure that the activity is performed and documented according to established schedules and procedures, and to ensure that equipment malfunctions are properly investigated and addressed. In this case, she is therefore responsible for planning and procuring of the laboratory equipment and software.

She also manages the day-to-day operations of the laboratory from specimen receipt to completion of testing to ensure optimal performance. In this case she is responsible for working with the laboratory staff in establishing efficient work processes so that patients get accurate results within the shortest time possible. This is aimed at meeting the laboratory production goals, and thus helps the institution meet its patients’ needs.

Also, Ms. Barry is responsible for managing production schedules to meet the laboratory workload demands within the available budget. As such, she is responsible for assessing the laboratory current and future needs and adjusting those needs according to the available funds. This ensures that the laboratory does not stretch the hospital financially. She also evaluates the laboratory’s production processes and makes recommendations to maximize efficiency and productivity, oversee proper inventory of laboratory supplies, and manage the proper performance of testing equipment.

Ms. Barry works closely with the Quality and Compliance Department in keeping the laboratory current and within the guidelines of regulatory and accrediting agencies. This means that she is the liaison person with both the internal and external authorities. She regularly has to get in touch with the relevant government to get accreditation and appraisal for the facility. To facilitate this she has to keep detailed documentation of all the hospital operations and make sure that it is available when required by regulatory the agencies. She therefore has to oversee and review internal and corporate audit processes, findings and ensure proper investigation are done and a proper disclosure observations is timely to the relevant authorities.

Ms. Barry is responsible for ensuring that the laboratory meets the security standards. As such she ensures the evaluation of the security needs of both the patients and staff by installing the relevant equipment, security measures and staff to man security round the clock. This means that she has to investigate the laboratory procedures and establish areas of potential threats and implement contingency security measures. This means that she has to evaluate laboratory errors and accidents and performing root-cause analysis to ensure appropriate corrective action such as training the staff on safe operation methods, is performed.

One of the most important security threats that may affect the laboratory efficiency is temperature and humidity inside the lab. As such Ms. Barry is responsible for establishing, implementing and monitoring preventative actions to ensure appropriate steps been taken regarding temperature and humidity deviations. She therefore has to ensure that the labs are insulated with the relevant materials.

Due to her expanded role in the laboratory she is very helpful to the institutions in developing, writing and implementing Standard Operating Procedures and policies as they pertain to not only to laboratory operations but also to the entire hospital. This means that she has to perform a thorough evaluation of the daily processes

Ms. Barry is therefore responsible for writing equipment, assay and process validation protocols, identifies critical control points and develops appropriate test cases to ensure proper validation. She also manages the validation and implementation of new assays, instruments, procedures and processes.

She heads the laboratory supervisory unit that includes the heads of various departments. Thus she has to conduct routine supervisors meetings with these heads to ensure that the facility is operating as per the schedule and identify threats that may hinder production well in time before they actually happen. She also provides direct supervision to assigned departmental supervisors to make sure that the facilities supervisory work goes according to schedule.

There are some State and Federal guidelines that have been implemented by the health care organizations in order to provide a safe environment for the workers, visitors, and patients. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) require each employer to provide safe and healthy working environment that is free from potential hazards that could harm employees or patients. The general guidelines required for personal and laboratory safety must be applied at all times in the Laboratory department. All procedures should be in compliance with OSHA standards (NCCLS, 2004). Therefore Ms. Barry should ensure that the institution and the staff is conversant with these guidelines and does not violate them.

The OSHA blood borne pathogens standard applies to the site where workers risk being exposed to bold and infectious materials to reduce the exposure to hepatitis C, B, HIV and other blood borne pathogens that might be found in human blood and cab be transmitted and cause diseases to others. In addition to the OSHA requirements, The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has established the fire prevention and control standards that must be applied in the Laboratory department. The staff has to be trained on how to use such equipment in case of a hazard. A proper labeling and handling of hazardous materials are requires all the time in laboratory. Therefore there has to be clear security instruction posted at strategic points and available to the public for utilization during such a crisis (NCCLS, 2004).

Ms. Barry mentioned that they train students every year to become qualified and competent laboratory personal, in order to help their community and contribute in public health care. The clinical laboratory staff facilities the diagnosis and detection of pre-disease and disease states. In addition, they are also actively involved in monitoring the progress made by the patients once they have received treatment.

There are many lessons that I have learned by interviewing Ms. Barry. To start with, we have to keep trying and not to give up if at all we intend to achieve our personal or organizational goals. Secondly, the laboratory department plays a major role in healthcare more than we realize and as such, we should be appreciative of the clinical laboratory staff. Thirdly, it is important to know the biographical data of the area that a health organization serves in order to provide adequate healthcare to the population.The community should always appreciate what laboratory staff major contributions in public health care.

According to Ms. Barry, the laboratory department has the vision of integrating clinical the fundamental sciences in the study, in addition to disease diagnosis. In order to achieve her department mission she set a number of strategically plans. To start with, the laboratory department is committed to the provision of diagnostic laboratory services of the highest order. Secondly, the department is intent on ensuring that both the patients and the service provider achieve satisfaction in the provision of optimal patient care.

Thirdly, the department hopes to fulfill the professional and educational needs of its residents, students, staff, and the faculty. Fourthly, the department endeavors to promote trust, creativity, innovation, intellectual stimulation, productive research, support one another, and work in harmony. Finally, collaborate with and support the needs of other departments.

Reference List

City Official Site. (2011). Virginia City. Now and then. Web.

NCCLS. (2004). Clinical laboratories and procedures manual. Web.

Sentara (2011). Sentara Williamsburg Regional Medical Center. Web.

US Census. (2009). Population. US Census Bureau. Web.

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The Biographic Data of the Area for Hospital

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