I recently learned about the concept of a lab formulary, an analogue of the pharmacy formulary. The latter is a list of the stock drugs carried by the pharmacy in a hospital. Prescriptions for hospital patients can only be written by physicicans for the drugs listed in the formulary. The comparable notion on the lab side is that only tests contained in the lab formulary can be ordered by physicians. Here is an article that describes the concept in greater detail (see: Constructing A Lab Formulary). Below is an excerpt from it:
Given healthcare's increasing emphasis on cost control and quality measurement, laboratorians need to reconsider their roles within healthcare organizations. A lab that provides what appears to be a commodity service may be at risk of being marginalized at best or outsourced at worst. But a laboratory that plays a highly visible role in promoting high-quality clinical care can strengthen its status within a hospital or healthcare system. One approach worth considering is to think of the laboratory test menu as a "laboratory formulary" analogous to the drug formulary maintained by a hospital pharmacy. Despite what outsiders might think, the role of the hospital pharmacy goes far beyond simply stocking drugs and fulfilling orders. For one thing, it is not feasible to stock every drug in every formulation that a physician might order. For another, it would not be in patients' best interests for pharmacists to fulfill blindly all orders they receive.
...[T]he appropriate role of the laboratory professional goes far beyond simply maintaining analytic quality and fulfilling laboratory orders. It includes determining what test methodologies will be offered and in what forms, specifically point of care, in-house laboratory and referral laboratory. It also includes redirecting physicians when they order tests that the laboratory knows to be suboptimal....The stereotype of a lab professional, whether technologist, clinical lab scientist or pathologist, is one of an introvert who likes to hide away in the lab... But the stereotype still risks being self-fulfilling....As lab professionals find creative ways...to share diagnostic testing expertise with medical staffs, we, too, will see an increase in professional status. And more importantly, patients will benefit through more efficient and accurate diagnostic testing.
I have not heard any strident calls for the use of a lab formulary so perhaps I am stirring up controversy where none exists. One of the major drivers for the development of pharmacy formularies has been the need to switch physicians to the less expensive generic drugs to contain drug costs. If a particular generic drug is the only option available in a hospital, this goal can be more rapidly achieved. The ire prompted by such a shift from the clinicians is transferred from the pharmacist to the hospital pharmacy committee that maintains the formulary. Since there is no "generic equivalent" to lab tests, such a goal can't be used as an incentive for the development of a lab formulary.
I can envision that one major rationale for the development of a lab formulary: the desire to place some limits on the inappropriate ordering of expensive molecular and genomic tests. However, even the most expensive of these tests may be appropriate under the right circumstances. Rather than a blanket ban on such tests, it would seem more appropriate to publish the clinical criteria for the ordering of such tests and then require the approval of a pathologist when these clinical criteria are not met. In other words, publishing criteria for ordering expensive lab tests, and then enforcing them, would be a suitable substitute for a lab formulary.
Comments