Create an Energetic Committee

Organize a group of eager and committed partners/colleagues to help plan your National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week (NMLPW). Colleagues from each lab and your Human Resources or Public Relations Departments are important committee representatives. Be sure you have the support of your pathologists and administrators and follow any regulations within your institution. Start early so you will have plenty of time to order promotional items, engage guest speakers, prepare exhibits, organize tours, request proclamations, develop educational materials, shoot video tape. The list can be as long as your imagination, time, and budget allow.

The committee's first charge is to determine what should be accomplished during the week and to set the goals and objectives. Elect a chairperson and establish subcommittees as your NMLPW team progresses through the planning stages. This is a crucial phase because it sets the tone for the success of your week. The enthusiasm your committee shows will be "infectious," spreading to all your partners throughout Lab Week and all year long.

Plan with a Purpose

With the committee in place, brainstorm ideas about what you would like to accomplish during this year's NMLPW. Over the years, laboratories have developed many common and some unique goals and objectives for Lab Week. Recognition of staff is usually a top priority. Have you developed a "Tech of the Year" award yet? Morale boosting is another high level objective, so things that build team spirit, like t-shirt day, door decorating contests, and anything with food and fun are popular. Consider the climate of your laboratory and see if Lab Week activities can help solve a problem, announce a new service, or raise funds for a special project. Be specific and detailed about your needs and purposes and you will see your plans quickly take shape.

Once your goals and objectives are in place:

• Create the messages you want to convey. Your message basically state your goals and objectives in crisp, snappy, interesting words and pictures. The theme provide a great starting point.
• Decide who your messages should reach.
• Determine how you will get the message across. Be creative about Lab Week activities. Remember who your audiences are and what motivates them. Don't be afraid to ask people what they want—try a quick survey or ask that people submit suggestions.

Start with Your Patients

Your patients are a perfect target audience for Lab Week activites. The possibilities for Lab Week promotions are endless! For example, highlight how you help people keep or regain their health. To help patients understand the value of laboratory testing, develop a game or quiz that informs while it entertains and rewards with inexpensive prizes. Distribute Lab Week buttons to patients or put tent cards on each patient tray. Make a video of your laboratory that traces a specimen throughout the lab, explaining why samples must be taken first thing in the morning or what "fasting" really means. Air the tape on your closed circuit television system.

Grab Public Attention

Grab the attention of the general public by arranging an exhibit or offering free testing at the shopping mall during peak hours. You can also team up with educators and their students, or librarians and their visitors. Laboratory staffers might teach a science teacher in-service on blood typing or microorganisms, or actually go into the classroom with some fascinating specimens to encourage students to consider laboratory careers or you can stock the library vertical file with helpful information on laboratory tests. A blood test or throat culture will never be scary again.

The “public” is a huge group that you can further target according to your goals. Is recruitment to your med tech program the goal? Try high school biology classrooms or first year junior college science programs. Are you educating people who are frequently tested? Elderly individuals and parents of younger children fill the bill. Senior citizens are relatively easy to find in community centers and at retirement activities through the “Y” or Park District. Such groups are usually eager for a visit from a dynamic speaker.

To get to parents, go through the kids. Do a simple presentation for children in the classroom and send an attention-getting informational piece or an invitation to a program and tour of the laboratory home for their folks.

Carefully consider your objectives and “pigeon-hole” the various “publics” you wish to reach. Don't forget spots outside your institution like shopping malls, the museum, and the library.

Remember, too, that there are many groups that already meet due to a mutual interest. Talk to a sporting group about testing for Lyme disease and other vector-borne diseases. Arrange an exhibit on appropriate testing for a cancer support group that might meet right in your hospital.

Think of the possibilities for a health club audience or weight-loss groups, for the garden club, business and professional groups, Scout troops of all ages, and your own medical staff. Be sure you schedule programs when your target audience is most likely free to attend.

Media Relations

Perhaps your state is facing laboratory legislation. Target the senator or representative "partner" you'll want to write, call, or visit to express your views. Certainly think of the how you build a healthy realtionship with the media—be it your own institution's community newsletter or the local TV station's medical show. Enlist your institution's Public Relations staff for help and use media to announce your Lab Week activities, recognize award winners, showcase a new instrument, and promote other newsworthy events in your laboratory. Once you establish a partnership with a media representative, foster it! Reporters will feel free to call for ideas and expert information and you can create even more partnerships for the laboratory with media readers, listeners, and viewers.