May 18, 2016 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
As technologies used by fitness wearables mature, medical laboratories will want to develop ways to access and process the flood of data that will become available
Point-of-care testing and remote patient monitoring are two technologies that could be disruptive to the clinical laboratory industry, particularly if use of these devices was to reduce the volume of patient specimen that are referred to the nation’s large, centralized medical laboratories.
This is one reason why savvy pathologists watch the stream of new products designed to allow athletes and consumers to monitor their fitness and other characteristics of good health. These devices are at the very front of the curve for remote monitoring of an athlete’s performance during training and competition, as well as enabling consumers to track different parameters of their health. What’s a toy for today’s sophisticated consumers could later be easily adopted for clinical diagnostic purposes.
One great example of how swiftly technology advances are changing remote diagnostic monitoring involves heart rate monitors. It wasn’t long ago that even basic heart rate monitors were a pricey purchase for consumers. But thanks to strong interest in gathering healthcare data, costs are dropping. (more…)
Feb 26, 2016 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
This healthcare big data project’s tools and predictive models involve real-time monitoring of patient data and are expected to be available soon to other to providers
One healthcare big data project has begun to report progress on using predictive analytics to improve patient care in the diagnosis and management of such health conditions as sepsis and heart failure. This pioneering effort is being done at the University of Pennsylvania Health System’s (Penn Medicine’s), Institute for Biomedical Informatics (IBI).
What will be of high interest for pathologists and clinical laboratory executives is how this big data project incorporates lab test results into the effort.
Recently, Penn Medicine announced Penn Signals, a big-data project that, in part, relies on the lab data housed in the academic medical center’s laboratory information system (LIS) as well as its outpatient and inpatient data house in its electronic health record (EHR) system. (more…)
Aug 10, 2015 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Managed Care Contracts & Payer Reimbursement, Management & Operations
CMS wants pathologists and other healthcare providers to report “every issue—small, medium and large,” when someone gets in the way of information sharing
Federal health officials are taking steps to end technology vendors’ “data blocking” practices that inhibit the electronic transfer of patient information. This is a tactic that has proven costly for pathology groups and clinical laboratories that want to interface their laboratory information systems with providers’ or hospitals’ electronic healthcare records (EHRs).
The fiscal year 2015 Omnibus Appropriations Bill passed by Congress in December directed the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to decertify electronic health record products that are knowingly interfering with the sharing of health information. (more…)
Jul 1, 2015 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
Consumers embrace wearable health-monitoring technology as developers find new ways to transfer collected health data directly into patient records
Traditionally, medical laboratories have been the gatekeepers for the lab test data of most patients. After all, it is regularly said that 70% or more of a patient’s permanent health record is made up of clinical laboratory test data. However, several market forces are at play that could eat away at the long-standing role of medical laboratories as the primary gatekeepers of patient test data.
Today, consumers increasingly want to use wearable devices that not only track their health and fitness, but are designed to also eventually stream self-monitored health data directly into clinical data repositories. As these wearable devices are cleared to use the same biomarkers involved in clinical laboratory tests to monitor the wearer’s health condition, then these devices will stream that data into the electronic health records (EHR) of patients with chronic diseases. (more…)
Dec 19, 2014 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing
electronic health recordNew products are expected to radically change the wearable fitness device game by allowing physicians and patients and even pathologists to see the same data
If Apple Inc. can succeed with its latest wearable health device, experts predict that physicians may soon begin using it to monitor the health of their patients. This may be auspicious for pathologists and clinical laboratory scientists if physicians ask them to monitor that patient data and provide consultative support.
It was in September when Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) unveiled its new smartwatch. When combined with Apple’s HealthKit software platform, the Apple watch might well the most powerful wearable health-tracking device to hit the market yet. (more…)
