Paper Title
Applying Lean Tools in The Clinical Laboratory to Reduce Turnaround Time for Blood Test Results

Abstract
Clinical laboratories are working with almost all clinics in a hospital settlement. They are always expected providing with reliable and on time blood test results by emergency departments, operating rooms, catheterization laboratories and other inpatient clinics. Not only inpatient clinics but also outpatient clinics are demanding time wise since they might be also critical. As a basis of our previous study named �Applying lean six sigma improvement methodology to increase catheterization laboratory efficiency�, we have measured waiting time of patients at each processes from admission until discharge during catheterization laboratory operations. We realized patient-waiting time, late start of first procedures and procedure cancellations are the biggest problems. Pareto analysis has shown that the biggest (30%) contributor of late starts in the cath lab was late blood test results. In this study we aimed reducing blood test delays more than half. Keywords- Clinical laboratory, Catheterization laboratory, Healthcare, Lean six sigma, Operational efficiency