foreign students so today's laboratory management topic is all about decision making and problem solving decision making and problem solving class they are such integral parts of daily life you know they Encompass every aspect of management and also our personal action that discussing them alone is may seem impossible now because of their importance class however decision making and problem solving skills must be given top priority without proper training and attention in this area the manager and the laboratory simply muddle through postponing everyday decisions until they become acute this topic describes the decision-making process as a series of eight steps and provides a selection of analytic tools that may improve the ability of the manager to make wise decisions that is why as not just personal but most importantly class when we work as a medical technologist or someday some of you may be managers or chief med techs or maybe the head of the laboratory decision making and problem solving are very vital characteristics of a professional okay now here are the learning objectives number one is to recognize the features of a good decision second one is to identify the role that human behavior plays and its influence in the decision-making process explain the steps to making a sound decision and the last one is to select from the available qualitative and quantitative techniques to resolve the problems and decisions faced by a laboratory manager let's start this um topic with a story the three frogs now zero wants three frogs on a log and one of them made a decision to jump into the point how many were left what do you think is the answer of this story again there are still three frogs on a lung he only made a decision he took no action now the main part is to take the action meaning you need to walk your talk class and bring your decision to realization a decision with no action is still um you know not successful you only decide so they need to take the action now what are the characteristics of a good decision number one is you need to have a complete investigation of the root causes also the potential problems and also the obvious symptoms okay the second one is you need to identify evaluate alternative Solutions so in every problem you should have alternative Solutions like option a option b or option C we also need to entertain those options okay third one it should involve the selection of the best solution by in-depth analysis of the available information and the last one should income pass an effective strategy for implementing the solution that is why you need to think of you need to strategize more on how to implement the solution okay now human element um inevitably class emotions prejudices peer pressures and personal interests exert tremendous influence on the choices mean okay that is why these factors will never be eliminated will never be completely eliminated but you can control these factors like your emotions your Prejudice no that is why class there's a saying that says that do not make a promise when you're happy and do not make a decision when you're angry okay so that is why your emotions your personal interests they will give impact on the choices that you've made every day also disclosure effective control method and balancing action providing the participants have the power and Independence to consider its impact and to act accordingly another human element that we need to consider is the acid by using objective analytical tools to evaluate the situation and allowing the human touch to provide the perspective and context for selection and implementation so you also need to overseer assets or important assets for that decision now there are eight steps in making a Sound Decision these are the eight steps and one by one we will discuss these eight steps we will begin with step number one is that there should be a recognition now in an arising problem you need to be aware that something is wrong and it needs the attention of the manager okay as a complaint from a physician or an employee or as a flag in the quality control data so as a manager someday we need to recognize or we need to welcome such complaints from The Physician or the employee or even you need to be aware that something is wrong you need not to be blinded by um what is wrong okay also to recognize a problem not as simple as it may appear may only be random occurrence after recognizing or after you're aware that there's something wrong step two is to investigate okay investigation in this step class there should be collection of data okay for you to investigate also you can interview staff and you need to gather information now during this fact Gathering stage the manager should be alert to ancillary issues that may have contributed to the problem but we're not at first readily apparent okay step 3 is definition according to president Lyndon Johnson when the problem has been defined the solution often becomes obvious to all that is why in defining the problem class we need to determine all the issues and aspects of the question including people even equipment communication supplies and the workflow itself now part of defining the problem or just um in definition is deviation deviation class is a one-time random human error okay it is a one-time random human error effectual problem is the symptom or Surface sign that may hide the real cause if a problem okay and we say of causal problem this is the root cause of the problem okay now also in defining class attention should be given to asserting in the depth of the trouble and questioning the boundaries of the definition now first question that you need to consider is is this only a symptom of a more serious or widespread problem second one is it a one-time deviation from the standards or random human error or the third one you can ask is it only an effectual problem which must be investigated further to uncover the root or causal problem that is why you need to be alert if there's some fishing problem or you may sense that there's something wrong that that minute wrong or minute problem can be a big one so you need to to prevent it to be that big okay now step number four class is to identify Alternatives okay identify Alternatives in this step you determine the solutions that are available to remedy the situation it was a key at this stage to be aware of as many alternative Solutions as possible the manager then has a range of options to choose so after defining the problem at that time you can also identify or you can also be aware of the alternative solution maybe we can choose this option or maybe we can choose this option option and among those options that needs to be chosen you need to choose the best alternative okay now step number four is alternative also some proposals can be rejected outright considering each alternative as it becomes known is time consuming okay and the manager May settle on a poor choice simply because of time constraints so that is why you need not to be pressure of the time constraints steps five and six is when you evaluate the solution and that's the time that you need to select okay after you pull um visible Solutions okay you already compiled the solutions or shall we say the potential Solutions a thorough evaluation should be conducted that's not step number five and step number six is to select the best alternative okay variety of tools can be used to select the most suitable alternative and step number eight after selecting the best alternative that's when you implement the final decision and devise a mechanism to monitor compliance okay after not just Implement plus but also you follow up okay what you implemented if somehow it improves or somehow recovered the problem okay now in decision making techniques class there are two kinds of tools it can be qualitative tools and quantitative tools when we say of qualitative from the word itself it involves personal judgment also you can also solicit device advices and systematic option review now when quantitative tools it includes both QC measures and financial data now let's start with the qualitative tools when we say of qualitative Tools in decision making it's based on your personal judgment okay actually beginning of your birth class we have the skills or we already developed the skills in choosing between options right when we were both um When We Were Young once before okay we every day we face so many options we face so many choices and by that we develop this session making um scale okay now these grow with maturity and experience as what they said that you listen to mature ones because they are the ones who are good at decisions decision making because as they said or we already encounter that problem so somehow decision making skill is it will grow as you grow also older okay once you mature also specific duties and demands of the workplace and profession become familiar with formal training and career advancements okay that is why in every um professional duties before you become professional there should be um formal training also okay personal knowledge the vital resource in evaluating Alternatives and making decisions also another qualitative tool is solicitation of advice you need to ask opinion class you organize a committee you can do that seeking a consensus from colleagues and co-workers and delegating the task to staff members as what they said no man is an island maybe you cannot always do it alone so you need to ask help from someone or when you ask help or when you solicit an advice class you'll make sure that you solicited an advice from the right person for that specific problem okay now forming a group or a committee to focus on a problem is one of the most common approaches to decision making now there are four ways for you to solicit some advice number one is brainstorming now this is a technique used in groups whereby everyone is freely and spontaneously throws out ideas and solutions for later evaluation without regard for validity so in here in brainstorming class the everyone in their group will just throw out ideas okay and you just evaluate it after while in synaptics class in this method group whose members are brought together as a problem solving team you can also do nominal grouping in this um in this way wherein you have a meeting in which individuals class will write original ideas in private okay with the alternative Solutions anonymously you present it to the group for discussion and then you vote on and then tally it in secret okay this is more on a private way of soliciting some advice okay also you can do Delphi method okay this is the modification of nominal grouping in such a way in this method input and opinions of experts are solicited on questionnaires before the method meeting no results are then discussed and voted on anonymously okay also class another qualitative tool is systematic option review this involves prioritizing each option according to its apparent um attractiveness you can also do T chart this is a one popular format for evaluating facts and information um it clarifies the opportunities and risks associated with each option and makes the selection process more objective now a teacher class this technique has it has been bothered by the accounting okay the problem and the proposed Solutions are written down at the top of the page and a line is drawn at the middle hence the name letter D and the advantages and the disadvantages are listed on either side of the T okay now this is an example of a t chart this visual presentation of The Proposal often clarifies the opportunities and risks associated with each option and makes the selection process more objective so in this short class again it looks like letter T because you put a line in the middle the left side are the disadvantages and the right are the disadvantages now let's go to the quantitative tools operations research one branch of management science that specializes in providing quantitative tools for decision making now in your or there are four main areas number one is probability analysis number two is queuing Theory third one is linear programming and the last one is simulation now in probability analysis this measures the risk by assigning a value expressed as a percentage to the likelihood of a specific event occurring also in queuing theory it provides recommendations for the number of Staff like the number of lobotomies the number of Clerks or the technical Personnel needed 200 and unpredictable workload third one is linear programming this is a tool for allocating limited resources among competing needs and the last one is simulation designs models to imitate real life conditions so the different intervention scenarios can be compared now in probability analysis we can do a priority probability meaning this obtained by deductions based on assumed conditions now in this kind of probability class the laboratory will establish normal ranges but these normal ranges cannot predict when certainty where the patient's results will fall okay now we also what we call empirical probability um determined by recording actual events over a specific period of time and you calculate the number of times each event occurs okay this is used when the lab establishes qz ranges for a new lot of regions for controls okay we have also what we call subjective probability this is based on the knowledge and the experience of the individual that's why it's called subjective or group and a prediction is made of the likelihood of an event occurring so these are the three probabilities priority probability empirical um you just um um what do you call that one remember that this is more on deductions okay when you say of empirical class these are recording actual events but you're subjective based on the knowledge and experience of the individual okay we also have queuing Theory this was originally excuse me this was originally designed to determine the number of Airline reservation clerks needed for a given time period so this is the original plan of the queuing theory now this is designed to determine the Staffing requirements of a workstation okay it's more on the stopping requirements this is for the need for prom service and to the need for an adequate number of servers to meet with an urgent demand that's why it's called queuing meaning Q version linear class when you queue for a boss okay once these parameters have been determined they can be entered into a queuing program for Staffing level calculation so meaning who will be prioritized first if this certain shall we say certain uh prompt service okay if this certain demand okay so that's why this is more on like prioritizing stuff okay now linear programming it was designed to resolve the following problems number one limits and restraints on the availability of resources now it can be your staff or even the time and the expenses also constant need for decisions as to allocations of these limited resources among competing needs and the third one is the pressure to maximize income and minimize losses now in linear programming these are um questions and variables associated with this type of procedure you can evaluate yourself or you can ask yourself does the instrument perform all the tests required or as or is additional equipment necessary are the throughout and the turnaround time acceptable is the price within the laboratory budget so in linear programming you need to consider the resources like the staff the time the expenses okay in simulation class the computer has made possible the development of models that closely duplicate the conditions found in real life settings this is the attempt to identify important variables which the manager can then manipulate to test the impact of different options on the system okay so example class computer projection of the impact on the length of patients stay in the hospital if CK ISO enzymes are batch and run at different times instead of on a stat basis okay so in simulation class this is how you simulate meaning you identify important variables okay thank you so much for listening um