Assessing the survival of an MT school - medical technology

Medical Laboratory Observer, Jan, 1989 by Beth R. Cepil

Each year, the hospitals hire an average of two graduates from our MT program as full-time staff members. Training time is halved by a conservative estimate, and recruitment costs are eliminated because these employees are "homegrown." Therefore, we estimated recruitment cost savings of $540 and training cost savings of $1,358 per hire (half the $2,717 in the preceding paragraph).

Students may apply for parttime weekend work, a maximum of 20 hours per pay period, at $5.96 per hour (no benefits). Since they substitute for staff technologists, this represents savings of $8.76 per hour based on the upper limit of the staff's pay scale-$ 14.72 per hour, including benefits. During the 1985-86 program year, three students worked a total of 1,200 weekend hours for a cost benefit to the laboratory of $10,512.

In addition, students were called upon in emergencies to perform about 1,500 hours of productive work during school hours. While they received no remuneration for this work, they were allowed to leave early on school days when work was completed. Estimated lab savings: $22,080.

Third-party reimbursement was estimated at half the total program cost (net direct cost plus overhead, as discussed above), or $67,333. Actual reimbursement is based on a number of factors related to Diagnosis Related Groups and lab revenue for inpatient work, in addition to costs incurred by the MT program.

Altogether, the program cost for the 1985-86 term was $30,015, or $3,752 for each of the eight students. This amount essentially had to be covered by charge-paying patients. Since both hospitals have in fact been operating in the black, it can be assumed that the MT educational program costs were covered.

We also made a nonfinancial analysis of strengths and weaknesses in the program, analogous to benefits and costs. Among the strengths we identified were cost sharing in the MT program by the two hospitals, a 100 per cent success rate for our students in the job market and on certifying exams during the last three years, the program's excellent reputation among affiliated colleges and universities as well as employers of past graduates, and higher laboratory performance standards due to teaching and learning activities.

Some of the weaknesses were a possible slowdown in turnaround time in some sections at the beginning of student rotations, a lack of laboratory space for teaching activities, and staff problems with a dual teaching-lab service role.

The second phase of the MT program needs assessment began in June 1986 with a three-page questionnaire sent by the laboratory director of education to 104 laboratory staff members, asking them about their commitment to the teaching program. Seventeen individuals, indicating they had insufficient contact with the program, returned their questionnaires unmarked. Fifty-four of the remaining 87 staff members completed their questionnaires for a 62 per cent response rate. Seventeen respondents were supervisors and senior technologists, and 37 were technologists and technicians. Here's what the staff commitment survey told us: