Jun 22, 2012 | Digital Pathology, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, News From Dark Daily
PeaceHealth and the P4 Medicine Institute will partner to encourage clinical use of systems-biology based diagnostics in community care settings
PACIFIC NORTHWEST—In the Pacific Northwest, PeaceHealth has become the first community health system to join the P4 Medicine Institute http://p4mi.org/ (P4Mi) in an important collaboration to demonstrate practical clinical applications of systems biology in patient care. P4Mi is itself a spin-off of the Institute for Systems Biology that was founded in 2000 by Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D., and several colleagues.
This is a partnership that pathologists and clinical laboratory managers will want to follow. It shows how innovators in molecular biology are pushing forward to engage community hospitals and physicians’ offices in the fast-developing field of systems biology. Their ambitious goal is to achieve early—even pre-symptomatic—diagnosis through the use of multiplex diagnostic assays to analyze genes and proteins.
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Jun 20, 2012 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing
Business Intelligence software now allows for real-time data capture, analysis and evaluation of medical laboratory operations
For clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups across the nation, the latest use of middleware is for business intelligence. This is a brand-new trend, as only first-mover and early adopter medical laboratories have acquired and currently use some type of middleware solution that delivers business intelligence.
One-by-one, laboratory informatics companies are crafting middleware products specifically designed to deliver business intelligence to their customers and clients. Business Intelligence (BI) is a computer-based approach to collecting and analyzing business data. A flurry of activity in the laboratory informatics sector reinforces the importance of health IT and healthcare analytics in an increasingly competitive medical laboratory testing market. (more…)
Jun 18, 2012 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, News From Dark Daily
Medical laboratories and pathology groups can participate in national survey about changes in average revenue-per-requisition and average number of tests-per-requisition
Across the country, a number of clinical laboratory organizations have privately told The Dark Report editorial team that they have experienced a decline in the average number of lab tests-per-requisition over the past 18 months. Since the sample size is so small, it would be inappropriate to conclude that the experience of these labs reflects a national trend.
At the same time, even though this data is anecdotal and from a handful of lab organizations, it could be an early sign of an important shift in lab test utilization by clinicians. In recent years, employers, private payers, and the Medicare/Medicaid programs have initiated a variety of initiatives that have the common goal of encouraging physicians to more wisely utilize medical laboratory tests.
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Jun 15, 2012 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Hospital’s purchase of an “enterprise-wide solution” to be the EMR and related ancillary system software often leaves the hospital lab without the full LIS functions found in best-of-breed LIS products
DATELINE—PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA, Part II: Adoption of electronic medical record (EMR) systems by hospitals and health systems throughout this country may now be the single most disruptive factor in how hospital labs configure their laboratory information systems (LIS) specifically in support of their parent institutions’ informatics requirements.
This issue surfaced repeatedly during presentations made here on Friday, June 8, at the Strategic Summit organized by the Association for Pathology Informatics (API). In simplest terms, a growing number of hospital and health system administrators want to purchase and deploy a single “enterprise-wide solution” (EWS) for their EMR and total informatics needs. (more…)
Jun 13, 2012 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Clinical laboratory managers and pathologists will want to develop strategies for adding value under ACO model
One lesson learned from a pilot accountable care organization (ACO) project is that increased utilization of clinical laboratory testing in appropriate circumstances will contribute to improved patient outcomes. Just one year into a pilot ACO partnership, Norton Healthcare and insurer Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) have shown quality gains and some modest savings.
This is encouraging news for pathologists and clinical laboratory managers. It shows that, when physicians participating in ACOs more closely follow evidence-based medicine (EBM) guidelines, the increase in lab test utilization can play the expected role in improving diagnosis and guiding therapeutic choices. However, it should be noted that the results disclosed by the Norton/Humana ACO pilot only cover a short period of time. (more…)
