Introduction. The main expectations of the customers of medical laboratory services (physicians and patients) are to get fast enough test results with good quality for the reasonable price. Current situa - tion in the market and economical pressure requires from the laboratories to achieve the maximum output with the best possible quality and with minimum of expenditure.
Aim of the study. The aim of the project was the optimization of the workflow of the Laboratory of Biochemistry of the Centre of Laboratory Diagnostics of Vilnius University Hospital Santariski^kli- nikos implementing Lean concept and analytical process improvement to meet analytical quality requirements based on biological variation.
Results. After the optimization of laboratory environment and workflow the TAT for STAT tests has been decreased to 40-50 minutes and 95% of STAT tests are ready to be released during one hour from receiving at the laboratory reception. Despite that relationship between workload and TAT remain quite evident. While the most important ana - lytical performance characteristic - analytical CV for the most analytes concerned has got maj or improvement and meet recommended
CV<0.5CVi (CVj- intra-individual biological variation of the analyte) for the albumin, total pro - tein and alkaline phosphatase remain CV>0.5CVi.
Conclusions. Workflow of the laboratory of Biochemistry of Vilnius University Hospital Santariski0 klinikos was improved implementing Lean. For the most of routinely performed analytes analytical performance (analytical CV) was improved, but to achieve recommended an a lyt i cal qual ity re quire ments for analytes with narrow intra-individual biological variation interval (total protein, albumin) is rather difficult due to technological limitations.
