Sharon Cox, MT(ASCP)SM, has a passion for the correct count.

Charged with managing the laboratory supply inventory as core lab supervisor at Saint Francis Health System in Tulsa, Okla., she knows the right tally matters. Get it wrong and the lab can wind up with too little of what is needed. That can mean big overnight shipping charges when things run out unexpectedly. To avoid that outcome, the lab may order more supply than necessary, which leads to a different kind of problem.

“All those reagents you have sitting in the refrigerator—that’s just wasted money sitting there that could be better used by the health system,” Cox said last month during a talk at the Executive War College in New Orleans.

My feature article in the June edition of CAP TODAY. Read the whole shebang.