Laboratory director: example of a health transition mission

To meet the many challenges faced by healthcare players, the transition laboratory director is a first-choice ally. Thanks to his fresh eye, his hindsight, his cutting-edge technical expertise and his immediate operational excellence, he is indeed able to help laboratories, pharmaceutical groups and medical companies to get through a delicate period, or to take a strategic step successfully.

 

What is an Interim Laboratory Director?

The interim laboratory director is an external professional assigned to a medical laboratory for a period ranging from 6 to 18 months, in order to help the latter respond to a specific problem and to guarantee the good continuity of operations during a phase of profound upheaval.

This specialist generally has a long professional experience (between 15 and 25 years of career on average), solid technical expertise in the medical sector, and unparalleled interpersonal skills (charisma, leadership, emotional intelligence, adaptability, excellent stress management, etc.).

 

When to call on an interim laboratory director?

This experienced professional can work in a research laboratory, a biotech, a pharmaceutical production site or a medical analysis center in several cases, such as:

• Urgently replacing an absent laboratory director, until his return or until a new senior executive is recruited. The interim director ensures the continuity of operations, supervises the teams and implements impactful actions to optimize processes and sustainably improve performance;  
• Supporting regulatory compliance : Medical laboratories are subject to strict regulations, which are constantly evolving. The interim laboratory director can thus intervene upstream of a regulatory audit or a health inspection, for example, in order to quickly implement the corrective actions necessary to guarantee the proper compliance of the laboratory;  
• Lead crisis management : faced with a critical situation (labour shortage, health crisis, disruptions in the supply chain, legal disputes, etc.), the interim director is able to quickly redress the situation and limit the impact of the crisis on the laboratory’s activity;  
• Managing a large-scale transformation project : calling on an interim laboratory director will also be very wise to manage A complex transformation project strategic issues (International development, process redesign, new product launch, Organizational Change, restructuring, Mergers and acquisitions, Digital Transformation…) ;  
• Improve operational performance : thanks to his or her extensive feedback and external perspective, the interim laboratory director is able to quickly identify the actions to be taken to maximize the performance of the medical infrastructure: workflow optimization, process automation, cost and production time reduction, etc.

 

Laboratory director: example of a health transition mission

A private hospital group operating several medical analysis laboratories was facing a major management problem after the sudden departure of its director main laboratory. The latter supervised three sites specialising in medical biology, processing more than 200,000 analyses per month. Shortly after his departure, an internal audit identified several non-conformities.

To avoid sanctions and guarantee the continuity of operations until the recruitment of a new internal director, the management called on WAYDEN to appoint an interim laboratory director capable of taking over, overseeing the proper compliance and guaranteeing the good operational continuity of the activity.

Our interim management company WAYDEN quickly identified, within its pool of professionals, an interim director capable of meeting these challenges. With more than 20 years of experience in the healthcare sector in management positions in pharmaceutical groups and research laboratories, the latter was a tailor-made response to the client’s expectations. As soon as he arrived, he realized an in-depth diagnosis of the situation and implementation of a corrective action plan, in collaboration with the technical and medical teams.

His intervention made it possible to:

• To establish procedures that comply with regulatory requirements and to avoid heavy legal sanctions;
• Strengthen quality controls;
• Automate processes;
• Optimize analytical protocols;
• To facilitate the transition to the new director;
• Maximize the operational performance of the entire group.

Its expertise in flow management and automation has also helped speed up the processing of analyses, reducing results delivery times and improving test reliability. At the same time, he has re-established a climate of trust within the teams, by clarifying the roles of each person and establishing Smooth and silo-free communication between the different services. After 6 months of intervention, the laboratory passed a new audit successfully, thus avoiding any suspension of activity. The transition was smooth with the arrival of the new director internally, thus guaranteeing the sustainability of the improvements put in place.

 

Are you looking for a laboratory manager to help your medical company through a difficult period? Call on WAYDEN to find an interim director who meets your expectations and challenges!

 

Contact us to find out how WAYDEN can respond to your problems.