News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups
Hosted by Robert Michel

News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups
Hosted by Robert Michel
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Federal Government Report on EHR Interoperability Pinpoints Barriers to Information Exchange; Questions Value of Meaningful Use Requirements

Jan 15, 2016 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing

Some health IT experts criticize the Government Accountability Office report for ‘incomplete research’ and failure to focus on ‘person-centered interoperability’

Several years after paying billions of incentive dollars to thousands of hospitals and physicians to encourage adoption of electronic health records (EHRs), federal officials remain frustrated at the lack of interoperability among the competing EHR systems. This is a problem recognized by clinical laboratories that must create and maintain interfaces between their laboratory information systems (LISs) and the EHRs of their client physicians.

Frustration over this situation motivated Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee chairman, along with four other U.S. Senate Committee Chairman, to request that the General Accountability Office (GAO) study the problem and report its findings. The GAO released its report last September in a publication: “Nonfederal Efforts to Help Achieve Health Information Interoperability.”

The GAO’s investigators outlined five barriers to EHR interoperability. They also suggested that meaningful use (MU) requirements present a roadblock to information sharing. (more…)

Cincinnati’s Health Alliance Dissolves, Was a Pioneer in Consolidation of Clinical Pathology Laboratory Testing

Sep 20, 2010 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology

Its Laboratory Alliance Lab Outreach Business was Sold in 2003

Back in the mid-1990s, Cincinnati was the location for a multi-hospital clinical laboratory consolidation that was one of the first and biggest of its time. Now, all but one of the original organizing hospitals of The Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati have gone their separate ways.

The original goal was for the alliance to help its not-for-profit health members compete economically. Now this story may turn out to be a cautionary tale about the perils of alliances where health entities share operations but not governance.

Back in 2003, financial struggles of The Health Alliance contributed to its decision to sell ownership of the outreach business of Alliance Laboratory Services, the consolidated clinical laboratory organization, to LabOne, Inc. LabOne’s ownership of this medical laboratory later passed to Quest Diagnostics, Incorporated (NYSE: DGX) when LabOne was itself acquired by Quest Diagnostics in 2005. (See The Dark Report, August 22, 2005, “Quest Pays $934 Million In Acquisition of LabOne.”)

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