Automation Meets Advocacy: How Labs Can Thrive Beyond the Workforce Shortage

The reintroduction of the Medical Laboratory Personnel Shortage Relief Act of 2025 is bringing much-needed attention to one of healthcare’s most pressing challenges — the nationwide shortage of clinical laboratory professionals. The bipartisan bill, sponsored by Representatives Jen Kiggans (R-VA-02) and Deborah Ross (D-NC-02), aims to strengthen recruitment, retention, and training pipelines for the laboratory workforce by expanding federal grants and loan forgiveness programs.

According to the lawmakers’ press release, clinical laboratories across the U.S. face vacancy rates as high as 25%, stretching already thin teams and threatening to slow diagnostic turnaround times. With nearly 70% of all medical decisions relying on laboratory data, the stakes could not be higher.

While the proposed legislation is a critical step toward rebuilding the workforce, technology has a complementary and immediate role to play in reducing the burden on today’s laboratory professionals.

Bridging the Gap with Automation

At MediaLab by Vastian, we’ve seen firsthand how intelligent automation, streamlined compliance management, and integrated quality systems can reduce manual workload and burnout across laboratories of every size. Our solutions help laboratories function more efficiently — and with greater consistency — even when staffing levels are challenged.

For example:

• Compass simplifies competency management, automating staff assessments, problem-solving quizzes, and PT assignments — ensuring labs stay inspection-ready without requiring hours of manual oversight.

• InspectionProof centralizes accreditation checklists, documentation, and supporting evidence, turning what used to be a months-long preparation process into a continuous readiness model that saves hundreds of staff hours annually.

• IQE, our quality events platform, automates the nonconformance investigation, corrective actions, and management review reporting — so quality teams can focus on root cause improvement instead of data wrangling.

• Operis, our connected operations system, unifies equipment, facilities, vendors, proficiency testing management and audits in one intuitive platform — eliminating siloed spreadsheets and redundant tracking work.

Each of these systems reduces administrative burden, ensures compliance accuracy, and enables laboratories to do more with the skilled staff they already have.

Beyond Shortage Relief — Building Sustainable Laboratory Operations

While the Medical Laboratory Personnel Shortage Relief Act focuses on rebuilding the workforce pipeline, technology is what will make that workforce sustainable for decades to come. Automated systems help prevent burnout by removing repetitive tasks, ensuring that trained professionals can focus on high-value, analytical work rather than administrative upkeep.

Automation also strengthens training and retention, ensuring that new graduates entering the field (the very individuals this bill supports) have access to digital tools and structured workflows that make their jobs easier, safer, and more rewarding.

A Shared Mission

The Medical Laboratory Personnel Shortage Relief Act is an important acknowledgment that laboratory professionals are vital to healthcare, not behind-the-scenes support staff. As legislators work to fund and expand the workforce, laboratories can take proactive steps right now to make their environments more efficient, data-driven, and resilient through automation.

Together — policy and technology — can ensure that the nation’s laboratories remain not only fully staffed, but fully empowered.

About MediaLab by Vastian

MediaLab by Vastian provides connected, automated software solutions for laboratories across the world, designed to simplify compliance, competency, inspection readiness, and operational quality. From Compass and InspectionProof to IQE and Operis, our applications help labs reduce administrative burden, ensure regulatory compliance, and sustain excellence — even in times of staffing challenge.

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