Laboratory outreach programs require a comprehensive support infrastructure to be effective. Spanning disciplines such as operational excellence, business and financial processes, information technology, and successful customer and patient relationship management, it is critical to have the right staff with the right skills in place.

Laboratory outreach infrastructure staff require a variety of abilities and skills to be successful. While there is a role for each—usually broken into either interpersonal or soft skills or analytic or hard skills, or a combination—it is critical that the laboratory outreach infrastructure roles are staffed with employees who have obtained appropriate skill sets and are equipped to excel in promoting laboratory services. In addition to soft and hard skills, there is a third skill set that may be most important to success.

The First Two Skill Sets

Hard skills can be taught, tested, and measured quantitatively. Simply stated, hard skills get the job done. In a laboratory outreach program, this includes analytic, technical, or task-oriented functions such as:

• Courier safety and route adherence
• Computer data entry
• Phlebotomy proficiency
• Specimen labeling and processing
• Testing
• Billing accuracy

Interpersonal/soft skills are valuable externally when establishing customer relationships, delivering customer service, and interacting with patients. Internally, staff will use soft skills as they collaborate within the team or across departments, solve problems, and communicate with others. Specific outreach-related functions that rely heavily on interpersonal skills are:

• Sales
• Customer service
• Call center
• Courier pickups and deliveries
• Patient experience
• Service recovery
• Billing problem resolution

While these two lists do contain areas of overlap, truly, every role within a laboratory outreach program requires both soft and hard skills in order to be fully effective. As an example, envision two patient phlebotomy experiences performed by different employee types (see CASE STUDY 1).

Which of these experiences is preferable? Phlebotomist 1 shows proficiency (hard skills) but lacks in personal interaction. Phlebotomist 2 shows empathy and apologizes (soft skills) but is lacking in the hard skills. Neither experience shines the best light on the outreach laboratory. Ideally, the outreach phlebotomist will have both procedural proficiency and a patient/customer focus to manage the patient interaction. Consider the examples of courier interactions in CASE STUDY 2.

Again, which experience is better? Certainly, there are pitfalls of relying on a single set of skills, as neither experience shines the best light on the laboratory outreach program. Ideally, a courier will adhere to schedules, maintain specimen integrity, and have a customer-focused demeanor.

The courier and the phlebotomist are the eyes, ears, faces, and hands of the laboratory outreach program. Often, these frontline employees are the only representatives of the laboratory with whom an outreach patient or customer interacts. By focusing on both the interpersonal and transactional skills, these employees can help customers differentiate your outreach laboratory from the competition.

Assign Tasks by Skill Strength

Areas of outreach infrastructure that exclusively rely upon hard skills are functions such as setting prices, creating financial statements, and measuring and reporting key performance indicators (KPIs), as these rely heavily on analytic skills. However, the most successful individuals performing these roles will also be effective in communicating data, modifying reports, and answering questions from stakeholders.

Other outreach functions may lean more heavily on the side of soft skills. For example, laboratory outreach sales are often viewed as an interpersonal and social function. However, the most effective salespeople also analyze market intelligence and data, using it to effectively understand their market and communicate differentiating points with their customer or prospect.

Clearly, to have an effective outreach program, employees must rely on both hard and soft skills. An employee who can use the appropriate type of skill at the right time and maintains the correct balance in approaches will be more effective than one who relies on a single skill.

The Third Skill

The third skill set for laboratory outreach management is alignment. To truly facilitate an effective laboratory outreach program, employees must be aligned with the organization’s values and strategy. The mission and vision of the organization provide basic tenets of defined purpose and aspirational goals. A set of unique core values guides employees as to what they must do and how they must act to support the mission and achieve the vision. The role of the outreach leader is to identify areas of organizational alignment that can leveraged to strengthen the outreach program; likewise, identify areas where the laboratory can align to strengthen the organization. Core values are adopted to help guide behavior. See the TABLE for several common core values that are frequently cited in healthcare organizations.

The laboratory outreach program is the face in the community. Frontline employees are not only representatives of the laboratory, but also of the organization’s brand. How the organization is viewed in the community may be largely due to the public image represented by outreach staff. Employees must therefore embrace value-guided behavior and adhere to specific service standards that ensure the organization and the laboratory are well represented.

Laboratory outreach program alignment with these core values will provide a unified brand and impression in the community. Establishing and adhering to service standards that are aligned also can foster a competitive advantage. Consider the core value of patient-centered care and develop standards that prioritize patient needs. Patient needs from an outreach program are different from the needs of healthcare providers or other outreach customers.

For an outreach program to provide patient-centered care, the following actions may apply:

• Provide signage that aids the patient in finding the laboratory patient service center
• Employees wear uniforms and greet the patient by name
• Minimize patient wait time
• Perform a professional venipuncture and treat the patient with compassion
• Answer any patient questions and escort them to the exit if they need assistance

For an outreach program to provide excellent service to customers such as physicians’ offices, the core values of integrity and ethics, collaboration, and teamwork may be more visible. The following measurable service standards may apply:

• Standardized telephone greeting
• Branded uniforms
• Name badges

The outreach program will benefit from strategic use of the organization’s logo on printed materials and having professional signage that reflects the overall brand. However, having a brand and wearing uniforms is superficial without employee action. Alignment becomes relevant to the customer when laboratory outreach staff behavior is directed toward achieving organizational and outreach program goals. At this level, service standards become service level differentiators:

• Responsive telephone support
• Rapid problem resolution time
• Reliable courier support
• Short patient wait time for phlebotomy
• Clinically relevant test performance quality and turnaround time

Hire for Attitude, Train for Success

Educated and skilled employees are the most valuable asset of a healthcare organization. Loyal and engaged staff members demonstrate this value by delivering and elevating the level of service provided by the outreach program. Many hiring mistakes occur through focusing on the competence of hard skills. As demonstrated by the phlebotomy and courier examples, transactional or technical skills alone are not enough to deliver excellent service to outreach customers.

When hiring employees, especially for service roles, many managers use the approach of hiring for the soft skills, identifying an aptitude for the hard skills, and training the employee to excel in that role. This does not mean that an employee with excellent transactional skills cannot be trained to be successful; however, this requires a different approach. Many organizations provide resources to support developing culture and training to aid employees in aligning actions with overall values. Service standards and performance expectations may be part of each employee’s role, and aligned behavior across the organization enhances the culture and helps the individual be more successful.

Conclusion

In every laboratory outreach program, there are defined roles and responsibilities. Each staff member will use their unique abilities to perform these roles, with a combination of soft and hard skills to accomplish the required tasks. Ultimately, routine work becomes meaningful when it is aligned with the organization’s goals. An organization’s mission and vision create the objectives and parameters, and employee behavior must be aligned culturally. When they all work together, the outreach lab can build a differentiated and competitive service that will ensure success.

Jane M. Hermansen, MBA, MLS(ASCP), is Manager of Outreach and Network Development at Mayo Clinic Laboratories in Rochester, Minnesota. She received a BA in medical technology from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, and an MBA from the New York Institute of Technology. Jane’s 25+ years of clinical laboratory experience spans clinical research; process engineering; project management; and laboratory outreach consulting, training, and facilitation.