US Hospitals Continue to Be Squeezed by Shortage of Nurses, Rising Salaries

It is more than a shortage of nurses, as most clinical laboratories report the same shortages of medical technologists and increased labor costs Just as hospital-based clinical laboratories are unable to hire and retain adequate numbers of medical technologists (MTs) and clinical laboratory scientists (CLSs), the nursing shortage is also acute. Compounding the challenge of staffing nurses is the rapid rise in the salaries of nurses because hospitals need nurses to keep their emergency...

Clinical Laboratory Technician Shares Personal Journey and Experience with Burnout During the COVID-19 Pandemic

It’s not only medical laboratory technicians, healthcare workers across the board continue to deal with extreme pressures that preceded the pandemic Burnout in healthcare is a constant problem, especially in overstressed clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups. To raise awareness about the plight of medical laboratory technicians (MLTs) and other frontline workers in the healthcare industry, a former lab tech recounted her experience during the COVID-19 pandemic that led to burnout...

Disgraced Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes to Serve 11 Years, Three Months in Prison, Ending the Latest Chapter in the Story of the Failed Clinical Laboratory Company

Judge will decide the restitution Holmes must pay to defrauded Theranos investors at future court date; Ex-COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani to be sentenced next month Clinical laboratory leaders and anatomic pathologists who closely followed the fraud trial of Elizabeth Holmes may have wondered how the Theranos founder and ex-CEO would be punished for her crimes. Now we know. On Friday, a federal court judge sentenced Holmes to 135 months—11.25 years—in prison in the culmination of her conviction on...

‘Femtech’ Diagnostic Start-up Firms Want to Provide Women with At-Home Tests for Health Conditions That Currently Require Tests Done by Clinical Laboratories

Several young companies hope to expand the direct-to-consumer test market by introducing new diagnostic tests to serve the women’s health market Providing women with at-home lab test kits is the goal of a growing class of start-up companies that are bringing to market consumer test kits for a range of health conditions common to women. These companies believe they can shift a substantial volume of such testing away from the nation’s medical laboratories. Moreover, diagnostic startups that...

Another Milestone for CRISPR-Cas9 Technology: First Trial Data for Treatment Delivered Intravenously

Unlike most other CRISPR/Cas-9 therapies that are ex vivo treatments in which cells are modified outside the body, this study was successful with an in vivo treatment Use of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology for therapeutic purposes can be a boon for clinical laboratories. Not only is this application a step forward in the march toward precision medicine, but it can give clinical labs the essential role of sequencing a patient’s DNA to help the referring physician identify how CRISPR-Cas9...
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