Calculator Notes

The smART calculator establishes an optimum staffing level that considers laboratory quality control(QC), ART procedural times as well as laboratory staffing and personnel requirements. The sub-Committee have modified two calculators described by Alikani et al. (2014), in which the aim was to design a generic 'plug and play' calculator for all ART laboratories in the Australasian region, as well as contemporary lab operations and staff working patterns.

This first feature of the Main Calculator titled “Lab QC Hours” focuses on the QC aspects imperative to the functioning of an ART laboratory, whist the second portion, “Main Calculator”, calculates both ART procedural times and QC hours together to then populate the number of laboratory personnel required. It is crucial to conduct both calculations to evaluate the appropriate number of required personnel.

The second calculator is for Batch/Satellite Clinics and Small Labs. This calculator is likely to result in larger personnel recommendations in clinics that have substantially low procedure numbers or operate on a batch/satellite clinic system. It is advisable to adhere to the results of the calculator that indicates the highest staffing level.

It is imperative that the user reads the SIRT sub-committees published guidelines prior to performing any calculations (membership required).

Click here to watch our recorded webinar on how to use the calculators (membership required)

• One FTE should only cover 46 weeks (as we have 4 weeks holiday and 2 week sick leave is factored in as an average)
• Based on 46 five day weeks, we have 230 working days per year (46 weeks x 5 days) per FTE.
• Based on an average working day of 7.5hours (h) we can work out the number of hours an FTE can be available in one year = 230 days x 7.5h/day= 1725h.
• When allocating how many hours a FTE can allocate to procedures and QC, It is important to take off professional development time. In this calculator, we have factored in 4% of an FTE’s time to be spent on professionaldevelopment.
• Thus 1725h x 0.04h = 69h. This equates to approximately 1.5h per week in a 46 week year. 1725-69 = 1656h.

Thus the number of yearly h/FTE that can be allocated to “Procedures” and “QC” (after professional development is taken into account) = 1656h.

• Therefore, 1FTE = 1656h/annum.

Typical Procedural hours:
In total, 12 main ART procedures were selected (IVF, ICSI, ICSI+Bx, ICSI+TESE, FET, FET from PGT, oocyte freeze, oocyte thaw, IUI, sperm freeze, sperm freeze +TESE, semen analysis). A precise time for all components was discussed and allocated, and a complexity factor (double the time) was incorporated when a component involved one or more of the 5elements mentioned in Alikanis' (2014) complexity list.

Assigning Laboratory QC hours:
This calculator details the weekly, monthly, and yearly processes and managerial tasks. 'Hours spent per task' was based on a medium size laboratory performing approximately 2000 cases per annum.

Main Calculator:
The Main Calculator requires the user to input the Number of Procedures per annum. As the length of each procedure has been calculated in the Typical Procedural Hours , we can calculate the proportion ofFTEs required per procedure. This number is then multiplied by how many procedures per annum a clinic inputs, and a total numberof FTEs can be calculated. The QC time is also factored in here.

Batch/Satellite and Small Laboratory Calculator: Minimum personnelrequired (MPR)
This calculator is to be used by Small and/or Batch/Satellite Laboratories, in which the aim is to calculate the minimum personnel required (MPR) to staff such laboratories (Alikani et al, 2014). In a full-time laboratory, personnel must work simultaneously, thus, every day the laboratory operates, at least 2 staff must be present. This equates to eachday requiring 15 staff hours (2 x 7.5h). We have previously calculated that a full-time staff member (1FTE) can work 1656h per year. Thus each day a laboratory operates requires a minimum of 0.00904 FTEs (15/1656).

To work out your staff requirements you need to know how many days/year the laboratory operates, and multiply this by the daily FTE (which is 0.00904). For example, a lab running for 350 days requires 3.164 staff (350 x 0.00904). Therefore, in most small laboratories operating all year, a minimum of 3 embryologists are required, regardless of procedure numbers. However, a lab functioning a batch system operation or as a satellite lab (eg 10 days, every 2 months= 60 days) will stillrequire a minimum of 2 staff for every day operating, but overall the FTE required per year is 0.54 (60 x 0.00904). This calculation can be useful, if you are factoring the satellite FTE requirements from your main lab.