Lean Principles to Improve Quality in High-Throughput COVID-19 Testing Using SwabSeq: A Barcoded Sequencing-Based Testing Platform.

Objective: To describe and quantify the effect of quality control (QC) metrics to increase testing efficiency in a high-complexity, Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments-certified laboratory that uses amplicon-based, next generation sequencing for the clinical detection of SARS-CoV-2. To enable rapid scalability to several thousands of specimens per day without fully automated platforms, we developed internal QC methods to ensure high-accuracy testing.

Methods: We implemented procedures to increase efficiency by applying the Lean Six Sigma model into our sequencing-based COVID-19 detection.

Better Etiquette for Effective Paging (B.E.E.P.)-Improving Daily In-hospital Communications in the Pediatric ICU.

Introduction: Paging is a vital part of patient care that allows quick contact between physicians and other hospital personnel. There was no structured way to send a page to physicians at our institution. We hypothesized that by standardizing paging format, scheduling laboratory draw times, and using order clean-up sheets, through a bundle of interventions called Better Etiquette for Effective Paging, we would decrease the number of pages received on the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) resident pager by 15%.