Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #109824

Burton W. Wilcke, PhD¹, Mary Val Palumbo, ND, APRN², Robert Ross, PhD¹, and Barbara McIntosh, PhD³. (1) Department of Biomedical Technologies, University of Vermont, 302 Rowell Building, Burlington, VT 05405, (802) 656-3811, burton.wilcke@uvm.edu, (2) Office of Nursing Workforce, University of Vermont, 201 Rowell Building, Burlington, VT 05405, (3) School of Business Administration, University of Vermont, 318 Kalkin Building, Burlington, VT 05405

Assessing the Medical Laboratory Workforce in a Rural State

The medical laboratory workforce, which encompasses both clinical and public health laboratorians, comprises a significant component of the healthcare and public health systems within the United States. Much has been written about the shortage of clinical laboratorians and it has been pointed out that the indicators of shortages within the clinical laboratory such as vacancy rates and turnover rates are approaching those of the much publicized nursing shortage. In Vermont, it has been determined that in 2003 the vacancy rate for clinical laboratory scientists (bachelor's level) was 11% and the turnover rate was 5%. For clinical laboratory technicians (associate's level) the vacancy rate was 5% and the turnover rate was 11%. Even though the medical and public health laboratories have been identified as a critical part of the health infrastructure little information has been collected on the medical laboratory workforce. We report on a survey of all medical laboratorians (identified as those performing moderate or high complexity tests as defined by CLIA'88) throughout Vermont. The survey covered 16 hospitals, the state health laboratory and 18 smaller clinic and physician office laboratories. The survey measured demographics, educational/training background, commitment to profession and perceptions of laboratory quality systems. The findings of this survey will help guide policy on the assurance of an adequate laboratory workforce in support of public health in smaller states and rural settings. The results of the survey and their implications will be reported.

Learning Objectives:

• Define the demographic makeup of the medical laboratory workforce in Vermont.
• Analyse the education and training background of this workforce.
• Identify the laboratory quality systems in place.
• Identify the forces that influence committment to the laboartory profession.

Keywords: Workforce, Infrastructure

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.