The future role of laboratory medicine in hospitals

Although the costs for laboratory medication are only very minor compared to the total expenditures in the healthcare system, cost-cutting is frequently focused on hospital laboratories. Only 7.3% of German hospitals have a laboratory headed by a laboratory physician. To discontinue this trend it is mandatory that the hospital is not considered as a cost centre any longer but should be transformed into a profit and competence centre. To achieve this goal, the laboratory needs to show that it adds to the value of patient care and that it is an essential link in the value chain of the total hospital enterprise. The hospital laboratory should be a workflow management system. In particular, microbiology can serve as an example to demonstrate the economic advantage of a local hospital laboratory. The competence of the medical laboratory and its staff has to be offered to the hospital and its medical disciplines around the clock. However, in the future it will also be necessary to provide laboratory competence and excellence to outpatients. To achieve this, hospital laboratories have to consolidate and cooperate in regional networks.