The Stanford Beaker lab’s specimen label printing process has long been plagued by inefficiencies and errors, resulting in frequent in-lab reprints, reduced productivity, and heightened risks to patient safety and compliance. With an annual production of over 5 million labels, these challenges significantly impacted both operational performance and user satisfaction. A detailed assessment revealed that approximately 500 out of 8,100 barcodes required reprints daily, resulting in a 6.2% failure rate. Clinical staff spent an average of 8.3 hours each day reprinting labels, while printer uptime initially stood at just 80%, with each label taking about one minute to print. User satisfaction surveys indicated a rating of 75%.

The Epic Beaker specimen label printing initiative was introduced to address these issues and improve operational efficiency, patient care, and user experience at Stanford Health Care. The project included updating outdated printers, developing a dedicated support framework, enhancing staff training, and introducing proactive maintenance measures. These efforts led to a significant boost in printer uptime to 96%, a 45% reduction in average print time, and an improvement in user satisfaction ratings to 92%. Moving forward, ongoing efforts will focus on maintaining these improvements through continuous monitoring, regular Maintenance and Operations Reviews (MORs), and adaptive approaches to overcome new challenges, with the ultimate goal of further enhancing the patient experience. This session will also highlight the collaborative contributions of the Clinical Lab, Technology and Digital Solutions, and the Emergency Department, which played crucial roles in achieving substantial cost savings and service delivery enhancements.

1. Understand the Current Challenges: Participants will gain an understanding of the inefficiencies and error rates in the specimen label printing process at the Stanford Beaker lab, and how these issues impact patient safety and compliance.
2. Explore Improvement Strategies: Attendees will review the key strategies implemented in the Epic Beaker project, such as system upgrades, staff training, and enhanced support models, which have successfully improved operational efficiency and user satisfaction.
3. Recognize the Impact of Enhancements: Learners will examine the measurable improvements in printer uptime, printing time, and user satisfaction, which were achieved through proactive maintenance and support practices in the label printing process.