Healthcare Cyberattacks at Two Hospitals Prompt Tough Decisions as Their Clinical Laboratories Are Forced to Switch to Paper Documentation

Recent intrusions into the hospitals’ IT systems resulted in blocked medical records including medical laboratory data Healthcare cyberattacks continue to be a threat that bring potentially costly business consequences for clinical laboratories. Just in the past month, two hospital systems had their health information technology (HIT) systems disrupted due to security incidents. In response, the hospitals’ medical laboratories were forced to switch from digital to paper documentation and, in...

New Life for Idle PCR Instruments Following the Sustained Decline in COVID Testing

How one PCR laboratory optimized workflows, reduced costs, and pivoted operations for improving profitability post-COVID     As variants of SARS-CoV-2 continue to confront physicians, PCR (polymerase chain reaction) instruments purchased for COVID-19 testing may still stand idle more often than not at reference and hospital laboratories. To make matters worse, clinical laboratory administrators must still deal with fluctuating demand for COVID testing, improving the...

Researchers at Rockefeller University and HHMI Identify Biomarker That Makes People “Mosquito Magnets”

These new insights might lead to a new line of clinical laboratory testing, particularly if the results could guide the patient to microbiome-based repellents that would remain effective for months once applied Researchers are beginning to identify what compounds make individuals more attractive to mosquitos. That is a first step in the development of a biomarker that could be developed into a clinical laboratory test. Question is: would there be enough consumers wanting to do a lab test to...

Federal EKRA Law Continues to Cause Uncertainty in Clinical Laboratory Sales Compliance

Healthcare attorneys advise medical laboratory leaders to ensure staff understand difference between EKRA and other federal fraud laws, such as the Anti-kickback Statute More than four years have passed since Congress passed the law and yet the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act of 2018 (EKRA) continues to cause anxiety and confusion. In particular are the differences in the safe harbors between the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and Stark Law versus EKRA. This creates uncertainty...

High School Students in Upstate New York Learn 60 Critical Medical Laboratory Skills

Program launched by a Rochester-area technical center is intended to provide early study for students interested in a career in clinical laboratory medicine Acute shortages of clinical laboratory staff across all types of skills is one of the big stories of this new year. It is also triggering unconventional approaches to reach students in high school and interest them in careers as medical technologists (MTs). One such example is a high school in New York that now offers a top-level medical...

Healthcare Experts See Links Between COVID-19 and RSV as Tripledemic Pressures Ease on Hospitals and Clinical Laboratories

Some medical experts suggest an ‘immunity gap’ related to COVID-19 mitigation measures, while others point to alternative theories Surge in fall/winter SARS-CoV-2, influenza (flu), and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) hospitalizations and ensuing clinical laboratory test referrals—dubbed by some public health experts as a “tripledemic”—appear to have eased in the US, according to stats from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Becker’s Hospital Review reported. However,...
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