White Papers

NEW! Transferring Laboratory Data into the Electronic Medical Record: Technological Options For Data Migration In The Laboratory Information System

In an increasingly competitive economic environment for healthcare services, clinical diagnostic laboratories are looking at tools that can improve their efficiency and increase their profits. Of primary interest are sophisticated laboratory information systems (LIS) that can interact with the facility or institution’s electronic medical record (EMR) system and/or electronic health record (EHR).

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NEW! A CEO’s Guide to Next Generation Revenue Cycle Management: What Service Providers Need to Know to Survive the Changing Diagnostic Healthcare Environment

Macroeconomic pressure, increased governance, organizational changes, and technological advances are driving pervasive and lasting changes in the fabric of the healthcare system. Because diagnostic services influence the majority of healthcare decisions, changes to healthcare are magnified in the diagnostic services segment. Failure to aggressively adapt to this dynamic environment can easily imperil diagnostic service providers.

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NEW! Cleaning Up Your Laboratory’s Fecal Occult Blood Testing Program: New Opportunities for Better Patient Compliance, Increased Accuracy, and a Happier Staff

The fecal occult blood test (FOBT) is one of the most commonly recommended CRC screening methods by the National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Health, and the American Cancer Society.2 The FOBT has widely been used as an effective screening tool for CRC. Studies have shown that FOBT, when performed every one to two years in people aged 50 to 80, can help reduce the number of deaths due to CRC by 15 to 33 percent.

CRC is preventable through regular screening. Unlike many other types of cancer, CRC is easily curable if found early and can be prevented by removing precancerous polyps. Both polyps and early stage cancers are usually asymptomatic. Compared with these lesions, cancers that have grown large enough to cause symptoms have a much worse prognosis.

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NEW! Laboratory Information Systems (LIS) in the 21st Century: The Challenges and the Promises

The environment for health information technology, specifically LIS’s, requires adherence to a number of national and international standards including CLIA, CCHIT, ANSI, HL7, HITSP, and LOINC. A modern medium to large clinical diagnostic laboratory is made up of numerous specialized laboratory units – microbiology, chemistry, hematology, anatomic pathology, etc. – which all have unique needs and workflows. This presents challenges for LIS’s, which can be handled through modular systems that utilize a single database, are flexible and scalable, and can be customized for each laboratory unit or institution’s needs. Many laboratories also require customizable non-clinical applications like billing and client connectivity.

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How Internet-Based Lab Tests Access Helps Clinical Laboratories Serve Un-Insured and Under-Insured Patients

Internet-based companies that provide consumers with access to lab tests provide a significant and highly valued service for patients, particularly for those patients who are uninsured and underinsured. This free download will provide readers with a detailed explanation on how these services work and the benefits these companies provide to the uninsured, the underinsured, and those with high-deductible health insurance. This report also will outline the value of transparency in healthcare pricing and how price transparency helps physicians in Ohio provide better patient care for the uninsured and underinsured.

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Connecting Labs to Physicians’ Electronic Health Records: Effective Strategies for Laboratories to Add Value

The American healthcare system is in the process of significant change. Healthcare represents the fastest growing segment of our GDP, accounting for 17.3% of expenditures in 2009 and 19.3% projected for 20191, with Medicare and Medicaid representing 35% of that segment. Most metrics and outcome measures indicate that our healthcare system is operating inefficiently and that we are not getting our fair share from our investment. There is a broad consensus that these trends are unsustainable and that a change is mandated.

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Risk of Misdiagnosis Due to Tissue Contamination May be Higher for Certain Specimen Types: Changes to Laboratory Staining Techniques Offer Opportunity to Reduce Contamination Events

Tissue contamination in the anatomic pathology lab has long been accepted as a part of the working environment. While laboratories strive to reduce contamination as much as possible, it has been viewed more as an inconvenience than as a serious issue. But that view is changing. As this white paper demonstrates, the risk of misinterpretation may be greater than most pathologists currently realize, especially in certain tissue types. Also, this paper illuminates a source of significant contamination that has largely been overlooked—staining baths.

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Getting Paid for Molecular Tests: How Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups Should Respond to Pre-Authorization Requirements by Payers

The proliferation of molecular diagnostics is bringing a tidal wave of complexity, cost and quality issues for payers, clinicians and laboratories. Although clinical laboratory testing costs represent only 3 percent of total health care costs, diagnostic testing influences 70 percent of all health care decisions. Therefore, payers are accelerating efforts to appropriately manage the utilization and reimbursement of molecular diagnostics and genetic tests.

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ISO 15189 Medical Laboratories: Understanding the Four Components of a Quality Management System

Medical laboratories are a critical part of the healthcare system. A patient’s diagnosis and treatment are often based on test results, and an incorrect test result could lead to a misdiagnosis — which could have potentially fatal consequences. This is why accurate test results are critical — each and every time a test is conducted. The standard requires medical labs to implement a quality management system. This requires them to document all their processes and procedures.

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Vaginitis Diagnostics White Paper: Vaginitis Diagnosis — An Opportunity to Improve Patient Care

Clinical laboratory testing plays a crucial diagnostic role in healthcare in the United States. That’s good news for pathologists, laboratory directors, and laboratory scientists. With the advancements in technology, laboratory test results are helping physicians make earlier and more accurate diagnoses. Numerous new diagnostic tests are available in the clinical marketplace. However, few of these assays possess the right combination of increased sensitivity, reasonable test cost, and the ability to significantly contribute to clinical care.

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Current Legal Challenges for Laboratory Professionals White Paper

In recent years, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) was concerned about fraud and abuse. It wanted to rein in revenue-driven arrangements that facilitate over utilization of diagnostic services. In response to these regulations urology and gastroenterologists are now establishing in-house anatomic laboratories. They often contract with local pathology practices for assistance in setting up these labs, as well as providing ongoing technical and professional services. Jane Pine Wood, along with Attorney Richard Cooper, who heads up the National Health Care Practice Group, explain how physician-owned laboratories must be structured to comply with CMS regulations. They point out contractual pitfalls for lab professionals, and offer advice on the best way to handle these arrangements.

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Laboratory Automation White Paper: Achieving Best Practices with Total Laboratory Automation

Evolution of the clinical pathology laboratory has been one long progression of advances in technology. These improvements have transformed pathology and laboratory medicine from the manual performance of individual chemistries or hematology tests to sophisticated diagnostic analyzers that perform multiple laboratory tests in an automated format. This review discusses the methods currently available to improve medical laboratory process efficiencies. It ends with discussion of the merits of “closed” versus “open” total laboratory automation applications.

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A CEO’s Guide to Molecular Diagnostic Reimbursement: Navigating the Many Challenges of Reimbursement and Commercialization

Reimbursement and commercialization are significant challenges in this era of personalized medicine and comparative effectiveness. Many traditional clinical laboratories and early stage startup companies are trying to enter this space and are struggling to evaluate both the market and its offerings. According to Gene Tests, a publicly funded medical genetics information resource, the availability of new diagnostic tests increases 10% annually. However, there is a 20% increase in the utilization of genetic tests per year versus a 1% to 3% increase in non-genetic diagnostic tests per year.

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Digital Pathology White Paper: Pathology Innovators Use Web 2.0 to Boost Productivity and Create Clinical Value

Web 2.0 capabilities are taking advantage of digital pathology and reaping great benefits from it. Instead of having to pack and ship slides, multiple pathologists can view the same image online from different locations, have online discussions about it and pass control back and forth while looking at the same image. Each pathologist can annotate an image in real time. As a result, pathologists employing digital pathology are saving time, increasing their profits, boosting their productivity and garnering big dividends.

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A CEO’s Guide to Increasing Laboratory Valuation: Effective Revenue Cycle and Compliance Management are Critical Success Factors

There is no doubt that the complexity of laboratory revenue cycle management is unmatched in all of health care. With frequent regulatory and compliance rules changes, ever tightening margins, and a severely weakened economy, it is getting harder and harder for potentially acquirable independent labs to be sure they are not leaving potential profits on the table. The Dark Report is happy to offer our readers a chance to download our recently published White Paper “A CEO’s Guide to Increasing Laboratory Valuation: Effective Revenue Cycle and Compliance Management are Critical Success Factors” at absolutely no charge.

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Change Your Labs Working Culture or Lose Your Medical Lab

This is a rare opportunity to get the inside secrets and strategies for reshaping your lab’s working culture into an energizing, can-do environment. Find out what the nation’s top-performing labs are doing to foster this kind of nurturing culture, and get ideas, tips and change models that you can put to work immediately in your laboratory.

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