"The Finest of Test Tubes"

At the annual conference of the Israel Association for Quality in Medicine, the laboratories at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, headed by Dr. Ma'anit Spira, were awarded first place, out of 400 submissions, for work on quality that was presented in a poster. The prize was awarded to the entire laboratory team, which over the course of four years developed and integrated the EFQM Excellence Model.

"The purpose of the process," explains Noa Dugma, Laboratory Quality Assurance Manager, who served as the coordinator, "is to improve work processes, improve communication between employees, set targets and criteria for constant improvement, create a better work interface with the departments we serve and more."

The process included putting together a dedicated team of managers and employees, conducting customer and employee surveys, internal audits to assess the level of quality and defining targets for improvement. Among the results of these initial activities, for example, was a computerized laboratory test book that was distributed for use by the departments. Two additional projects were reducing the number of samples rejected by the laboratory (a project conducted jointly with the Department of Emergency Medicine) and examining the turnaround time of tests performed in the chemistry and hematology laboratory. The purpose, as noted above, was to increase the trust and cooperation between the departments in order to improve the treatment patients receive.

"The laboratories provide services across the entire organization under highly stressful conditions," says the winner, Dr. Ma'anit Shapira. "When they came to audit us three years after we began the project to implement the quality model, we showed significant improvement in all core areas of our work. As far as we are concerned, our win at the annual conference of the Israel Association for Quality in Medicine proved that the hard work and close cooperation of the staff, with the full backing of hospital management, is not only satisfying, but also may serve as a model for others, something we definitely welcome."

Laboratory staff with the winning poster and certificate of appreciation

The certificate of appreciation