When recently working on a proposal to justify additional staff, I called NSH and obtained a document on CAP workload guidelines for histopathology.  To summarize it stated when averageing all the work together, there should be a ratio of 1 tech for 50 slides produced a day.  We keep track of totals for block and slide counts and our total slide count for 1999 was 65,332 slides which would equate to over 5 FTE's. We were currently operating at 3.5 and were approved to hire a new tech.  The problem now is finding one!!

Mary McCoy
Pathology Coordinator
Lakeland Medical Center
St. Joseph, MI