Finals (Current Trends in Laboratory Management)

                                                                     

Current Trends in Laboratory Management

Over the past 20 years, clinical laboratory in vitro diagnostics (IVD) has seen significant advances due in part to enhanced computer technology. The days of manually completing laboratory tests has fortunately been replaced with compact, highly precise instrumentation that offers fast throughput. Most instruments interface with a robust laboratory information system (LIS) that provides a platform to record data, preserve it, and report it in a timely and accurate manner.

3 levels of Change management:

• Individual change management
• Organizational/Initiative change management
• Enterprise change management

Advancement of technology has helped the laboratory system a lot. Not only it can reduced the time consumed by the staff, but it can also make the work easier and faster. Through automation, it offers better use of staff, decrease need for redundant equipment, and improve overall efficiency.  As new laboratories are built or old ones renovated, the open laboratory concept is generally adopted. In addition, environmental and ergonomic concerns are also addressed.

While there are many challenges facing today's clinical laboratory, there are also many rewards. The importance of the laboratory has gained recognition in its ability to contribute significantly to patient management. It is with this optimistic approach that laboratorians look forward to playing an even bigger part in healthcare and to be recognised for the skills we bring to the table. Advances in technology will continue to influence laboratory practices and how we educate our future laboratory scientists. By embracing these advances, we will be able to implement this technology into everyday practice, thus providing a higher level of patient care.

Finals (Principles of Marketing)

PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING

Marketing is a strategic process of attracting and maintaining a customer base. Many people incorrectly believe that marketing and advertising are one in the same. In reality, advertising is just one of many tools used in marketing, which is the process by which firms determine which products to offer, how to price those products, and to whom they should be made available. 

Of course, in a marketing, there should be a laboratory customer such as physician, patient, employer etc. Also, purchasing decision makers are divided into two:

• Captive users
• Discretionary buyers

It is also important to acknowledge the customer's expectations. The three segments involved are best total production, best total solution and best total costs. The strategy a marketing firm chooses for a particular product is vital to the success of the product.

In marketing, it is important to know the 4 P's:

"Behind every great company there is an exceptional marketing strategy in place. Every marketer has his/her own unique strategy but most marketing professionals agree on a few fundamental principles of marketing."

Finals (Financial Management)

Financial Management

It is a management of finances of business or organization in order to achieve financial objectives. It means planning, organizing, directing and controlling the financial activities such as procurement and utilization of funds of the enterprise. It key objectives are to create wealth for business, generate cash and provide return of investment.

Since this topic is important especially when you plan to manage a laboratory, although it is not quite related to the work of a medtech, still, it is important to know how manage your financial status in the laboratory. We need a budgeting process that composes of financial planning, financial control and financial decision-making.

There are 3 process to separate budgets during budgeting process:

• Operating budget
• Capital budget
• Cash budget

Forecast of expenditures:

- Effective budgeting: careful identification of all categories and most prudent allocation of funds for each laboratory

Financial controls- the finance manager has not only to plan, procure and utilize the funds but he also has to exercise control over finances.

One of the most important finance functions is to intelligently allocate capital to long term assets. This activity is also known as capital budgeting. It is important to allocate capital in those long term assets so as to get maximum yield in future. Following are the two aspects of investment decision.

Financial management helps setting clear goal, it also direct the efforts of all functional areas of business towards achieving the goal and facilitates among the functional areas of the firm. The importance of financial management is not limited to the managers who make decisions in the firm. Proper financial management will help firms to supply better product to its customers at lower prices, pay higher salary to its employees and still provide greater return to investors.