Using the laboratory information system to achieve strategic advantage over the competitors of hospital-based clinical laboratories.

The competitors of hospital pathologists are commercial reference laboratories, hospital special function laboratories, pathology groups in neighboring hospitals, hospital mainframe computer personnel, and users of patient proximity testing systems. The laboratory information system can provide a strategic advantage over these competitors by matching, exceeding, or substituting for their capabilities and by creating switching costs for clinics, administrations, and patients. For example, the installation of microcomputers in clinicians' private offices provides them with ready access to the pathology data base, bonds them to the hospital, and capitalizes on the willingness of the hospital to invest in information technology.