From rapid diagnostics to a rapid diagnosis - UMC Utrecht histopathology laboratory

At the pathology department, rapid diagnostic pathways for cancer tissue are available. To facilitate this pathway, the processing of these tissues is prioritized over the regular tissue processing. By prioritizing the processing of rapid diagnostic tissues, all other tissues are delayed. This reduces the performance of all other processes at laboratory in terms of throughput time, and negatively influences the workload. This brings us to the question: How can we integrate the rapid diagnostics and regular tissues processing, such that all tissues are timely examined and prioritizing is not needed anymore? As shown by a prospective assessment using mathematical modeling, extended opening hours for the histopathology laboratory and introducing new defaults for tissue processing can facilitate the integration of rapid diagnostic and regular tissue processes. This will result in a more leveled workload and a reduction of throughput times.