ABSTRACT

The Seattle Children’s Hospital (SCH) Department of Laboratories is a comprehensive, multidimensional clinical laboratory serving SCH patients, performing testing for the region, and offering certain rare assays nationally. Eighteen faculty and 160 full time equivalents (FTEs) perform over one million annual tests in all clinical laboratory disciplines. This chapter illustrates the power of Lean when viewed over a decade, and how one round of improvements can catalyze new thinking and lead naturally to the next round of improvements.