Oct 11, 2010 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
GSTS Pathology Inks Pathology Testing Services Pact with KingsPath in London
In the United Kingdom, clinical pathology laboratories are facing major changes in ownership, operation, and how they are funded. One very visible sign of these coming changes is the latest expansion in the nation’s largest public/private pathology testing joint venture that took effect just two weeks ago.
On September 24, Serco Group, plc, announced that KingsPath, the pathology service arm of the King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, was entering a pathology joint venture with GSTS Pathology. This partnership became effective on October 1.
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Jun 4, 2010 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Milestone achievement may lead to more sophisticated clinical laboratory tests
Now science can create synthetic life forms and J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., is the first to do it. The landmark feat, which involved building the genome of a bacterium from scratch and incorporating it into a cell, “paves the way for designer organisms that are built rather than evolved,” noted the author of an article in guardian.co.uk.
J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., best known to pathologists and clinical laboratory scientists for his role in sequencing the first human genome, achieved the feat at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland. Venter and his team synthesized the 1.08 million base pair chromosome of a modified Mycoplasma mycoides genome. The synthetic cell, called Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0, is proof of the principle that genomes can be designed in the computer, chemically made in the laboratory, and transplanted into a recipient cell to produce a new self-replicating cell controlled by the synthetic genome. The experiment demonstrates how fast genetic technologies are advancing.
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Jun 2, 2010 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
GS1 Global Location Numbers are expected to improve supply chain performance
There’s a new global healthcare standard that will change how hospitals, clinical laboratories, and pathology groups get supplies from vendors. This standard will be launched as part of the GLN Healthcare Sunrise. It is an example of how the globalization of healthcare is about to take another significant step forward.
Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers should take time to learn about GS1 Global Location Numbers (GLNs). This will be a new standard and the GS1 Healthcare US Workgroup has declared that, as of December 31, 2010, all those involved in health care supply chain operations are expected to adopt the use of GLNs in lieu of custom account/location numbers. The first step is to standardize healthcare location information by December 31, 2010. This event is referred to as the GLN Healthcare Sunrise.
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