Sometimes the simplest ideas are the most effective. In our search for 'everyday innovations' thought up by pathology teams around the UK, our judges scored Blackpool Teaching Hospital's #LabTopTip about colour coding batch containers at their specimen reception the highest out of the entries received.
Specimen reception receive 4k requests a day. Lab assistants used to time stamp each request card. These are now batched in colour coded boxes indicating the time of receipt saving 2h per day! @BthPathology
— BTHPathology (@BthPathology) November 8, 2019
@BlackpoolHosp
@RCPath
#Labtoptips #AtTheHeartofHealthcare pic.twitter.com/3hAPfHujjL
The tweet got 8 retweets and 22 likes as well as comments from other pathology teams on Twitter who were interested to know how to set up something similar in their lab.
Run as part of National Pathology Week 2019, the #LabTopTips Competition aimed to collect simple hints and tips from pathology departments and facilitate sharing of good ideas via Twitter. Our judges, the RCPath Vice President for Communications, Dr Rachael Liebmann, and our Clinical Director for Engagement and Publishing, Dr Shubha Allard were impressed by how clear and simple the Blackpool Hospital Pathology team's idea was, and felt it could be easily be adopted by other pathology departments.
The team were delighted with their prize, a restaurant voucher for them to enjoy as a group. They said 'We are really delighted to have been selected as the winners of the #LabTopTips competition and hope it comes in handy for other pathology teams who have a very busy specimen reception'.
Thank you to everyone who took part for sharing your top tips with the pathology community.
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