Jun 15, 2009 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Public health lab training professionals expanding educational offerings for lab industry
It was inspired timing last week that brought together the nation’s public health laboratory training professionals in Orlando, Florida, just as the World Health Organization (WHO) announced its decision on Thursday to declare influenza A/H1N1 as the first influenza pandemic in 41 years.
This conference was organized by the National Laboratory Training Network (NLTN), in association with the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) and the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC). Approximately 100 public laboratory professionals from across the United States were in attendance.
The first keynote speaker was May C. Chu, Ph.D., who works in the Directors Office of the World Health Organization and is involved in laboratory testing activities that include epidemic and pandemic alert and response. Chu discussed the Global Outbreak and Response Network that WHO established on a voluntary basis in 2000. It has 120 participating institutions. She described how improved collaboration among health authorities around the world is helping to accelerate the identification of outbreaks like SARS (in 2003) and influenza A/H1N1 (in 2009).
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Dec 15, 2008 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Come January 1, 2009, Laboratory Corporation of America (NYSE:LH) will have new players on its executive team. These changes demonstrate that David King, who took the reins as LabCorp’s new President and CEO about two years ago, is actively reshaping senior leadership to better fit his vision for the nation’s second largest clinical laboratory company.
As of January 1, Bradford T. Smith is retiring from his position as Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Chief Legal Officer. Smith has had long and continuous service at LabCorp, as well as at Roche Biomedical Laboratories prior to its acquisition by LabCorp. Another significant change to the executive line-up at LabCorp is the departure of Myla Lai-Goldman M.D., who has served as Executive Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer, and Medical Director since 1998. Lai-Goldman also has deep roots at LabCorp, having established the advanced molecular diagnostics laboratory at Research Triangle Park for Roche Biomedical Laboratories back in the 1980s.
Another new member of the executive team is William Bonello, who joined LabCorp on December 8, 2008, as Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Bonello is familiar to clients of The Dark Report because of his coverage of the clinical laboratory industry as a Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC for the past six years.
The investor relations position became available when Eric Lindblom, who had held that position, was given new management responsibilities by King. Lindblom is now responsible for several strategic responsibilities, including the LabCorp 2010 initiative.
When LabCorp was originally created by the merger of National Health Laboratories and Roche Biomedical Laboratories in 1995, it experienced some management turnover as executives from both companies adjusted to responsibilities in a single corporation. However, by the late 1990s, LabCorp has enjoyed relative stability in its executive management team. Even since David King’s appointment as CEO at the time that Thomas MacMahon moved to Chairman at the end of 2006, the management line-up at LabCorp has remained stable.
Pathologists and laboratory directors will want to watch how the evolution from LabCorp’s old guard to its new guard shows up in the company’s competitive stance in the marketplace and in new business strategies.
Sep 11, 2008 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory Pathology
It’s a sprint to the finish line in the friendly race to be first laboratory in the United States to earn accreditation under ISO 15189:2007 Medical Laboratories. The two contestants are Piedmont Medical Laboratory (PML) of Winchester, Virginia, and Avera Health Laboratories of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Within the next six to eight weeks, both laboratories expect to complete all steps in the accreditation process. Each will eagerly await word that, based on the final assessment by outside auditors, all requirements have been meet and ISO 15189:2007 accreditation is granted.
This achievement will be a milestone event for the clinical laboratory industry. It marks the arrival of quality management systems (QMS) in laboratory management. This changes the status quo because quality management systems, like ISO:15189:2007 Medical Laboratories, are a comprehensive approach to managing all activities in the laboratory organization.
Until recently, both laboratories have chosen to keep their pursuit of ISO 15189:2007 accreditation out of the public eye. That is why this important story has gone unnoticed by the greater laboratory public and unreported in The Dark Report. But that is no longer the situation.
At the upcoming Lab Quality Confab on September 24-25 in Atlanta, both Piedmont Medical Laboratory and Avera Health Laboratories will be present and will make presentations on their quality journey. This is the first opportunity for lab directors and pathologists to directly the reasons behind this strategic decision and the lessons learned during the ISO 15189:2007 accreditation process.
To further help lab manager and pathologists understand the ramifications of this milestone, this week’s issue of The Dark Report published interviews with the laboratory leaders of Piedmont Medical Laboratory and Avera Health Laboratories. Among major motivations to spend the money and resources to achieve ISO 15189 accreditation was the competitive advantage each lab would realize, both with providers in the community as well as managed care plans.
In their Dark Report interview, both PML’s CEO, Joseph Skrisson, and Benita Haines, PML’s Quality Management, Compliance and Education Coordinator, stressed that ISO 15189 accreditation was triggering ongoing benefits to the laboratory, both internally in operations, quality and productivity, and externally, with regional payers and the community at large.
Leo Serrano, Director of Laboratory Services for Avera Health Laboratories, similarly stressed how ISO 15189 accreditation would help boost the competitive position of his laboratory in its service region. In fact, because of Avera’s commitment to quality, Avera’s senior administrators were immediately supportive when the ISO 15189 strategy was first proposed.
The arrival of quality management systems, including ISO 15189, will be discussed in several important sessions at Lab Quality Confab in Atlanta at the Hilton Hotel on September 24-25. Laboratory managers, pathologists, and others wanting to understand the ramifications of this new development in laboratory medicine should make plans to attend the second annual L ab Quality Confab on Quality Management in Diagnostic Medicine.
More than 50 sessions and topics will be presented, covering the full range of laboratory and pathology operations, ranging from specimen collection and courier logistics to using Lean with automation in the high-volume core laboratory. Poster sessions will take place, and national awards and prizes totaling $6,000 will be awarded. To see topics, speakers, and all the events at Lab Quality Confab, visit http://www.labqualityconfab.com.
To register for Lab Quality Confab, visit http://www.labqualityconfab.com/register.htm.
Finally, Dark Daily observes that it has taken only five years, since 2003, for the laboratory industry go from the first examples of Lean and Six Sigma in hospital laboratory operations to the first examples of ISO 15189:2007 accreditation by a hospital laboratory and an independent laboratory. These developments demonstrate how the art and science of clinical laboratory management continues to be influenced by the principles of quality management.
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