Overview

What is the true cost of providing laboratory services? By understanding this, the laboratory leadership can determine if it is spending money on the right things. Understanding the concept of cost of quality is an effective approach to quality improvement that can help organizations focus attention where it can have the most impact on both the organization and the customer. Analyzing cost of quality allows you to determine total money spent in providing quality service, as well as if any money is spent on poor quality. By determining the costs of providing poor quality services, we can identify and prioritize opportunities for improving quality and at the same time reducing total cost.

The goal of this presentation is to introduce the audience to cost of quality. The main components are:

• The cost of attaining quality (or the cost of conformance)
• The cost of poor quality (or the cost of non-conformance)

Presenter

Mohammed Mustapha
Senior Principal Systems Engineer
Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this activity, participants should be able to:

• Differentiate between good and poor quality.
• Recognize the impact of poor quality.
• Calculate cost of quality for your own lab.
• Discuss components of cost of quality.

Intended Audience

This series is appropriate for phlebotomists, phlebotomy managers, phlebotomy educators, and other patient-care staff involved in specimen collection.

Faculty Disclosure

Course director(s), planning committee, faculty, and all others who are in a position to control the content of this educational activity are required to disclose all relevant financial relationships with any commercial interest related to the subject matter of the educational activity. Safeguards against commercial bias have been put in place. Faculty members also will disclose any off-label and/or investigational use of pharmaceuticals or instruments discussed in their presentations. Disclosure of this information will be published in course materials so those participants in the activity may formulate their own judgments regarding the presentations.