[Software for illustrating a cost-quality balance carried out by clinical laboratory practice].
We have no proper reference indicating the quality of clinical laboratory practice, which should clearly illustrates that better medical tests require more expenses. Japanese Society of Laboratory Medicine was concerned about recent difficult medical economy and issued a committee report proposing a guideline to evaluate the good laboratory practice. According to the guideline, we developed software that illustrate a cost-quality balance carried out by clinical laboratory practice. We encountered a number of controversial problems, for example, how to measure and weight each quality-related factor, how to calculate costs of a laboratory test and how to consider characteristics of a clinical laboratory. Consequently we finished only prototype software within the given period and the budget. In this paper, software implementation of the guideline and the above-mentioned problems are summarized. Aiming to stimulate these discussions, the operative software will be put on the Society's homepage for trial
Department of Social Services and Healthcare Management, International University of Health and Welfare, Otawara 324-0011, Japan. mn@iuhw.ac.jp
Masahiro
M
Nishibori
Hitoshi
H
Asayama
Satoshi
S
Kimura
Yasushi
Y
Takagi
Michio
M
Hagihara
Mutsunori
M
Fujiwara
Akiko
A
Yoneyama
Takashi
T
Watanabe
D019411:Clinical Laboratory Techniques / Q000191:economics* / Q000592:standards; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D007564:Japan; D012984:Software