Feb 24, 2012 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Annual list emphasizes innovations on how clinicians will store clinical data and access it in ways that advance patient care
Each year the Cleveland Clinic announces its choices for the “Top 10 Medical Innovations of the Year.” In its list for 2012, there are at least three top innovations which will involve and engage clinical laboratories and pathology groups.
In particular, two innovations are a change in how medical informatics, including medical laboratory test data will be archived, assessed, and accessed. Here are the Cleveland Clinic’s top 10 medical innovations for 2012:
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Feb 13, 2012 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Vapor-based fumigant system could prove useful in disinfecting microbiology labs, clinical labs, and histology labs
There’s a new technology that bears great promise for improving existing methods of disinfecting hospital rooms and health facilities, including clinical laboratories. This pioneering work was developed as part of a collaboration involving infection control expert Dick Zoutman, M.D., FRCPC, who is affiliated with Queen’s University of Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
This technology is a vapor-based fumigant system and is coming to market with the name AsepticSure. It will be sold by Medizone International, Inc.. The invention makes a strong argument for changing the way hospital rooms and other healthcare facilities are disinfected. (more…)
Sep 14, 2010 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Industrial engineering firm issues “Consumer Report”-type assessment of mid-volume, automated IA and ID analyzer systems
It’s not often that pathologists and clinical laboratory managers can access a Consumer Reports-type of comparison of laboratory analyzers as they prepare to purchase new diagnostic systems. In the case of mid-volume analyzers for immunoassy (IA) and infectious disease (ID) testing, such a report is now available—and it is immediately available on the Web.
The report is titled “Using Quality Management Methods to Compare Competing Mid-Volume Segment Immunoassay Systems that Perform Infectious Disease Testing.” This report can be immediately downloaded and viewed by visiting the darkdaily.com web site.
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Aug 20, 2010 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Clinical pathology laboratories often find it difficult to get accurate information about various molecular and genetic assays
Because of advances in automated molecular systems and less complex technologies, it is now possible for more clinical pathology laboratories in community hospitals to establish their own molecular diagnostics testing program. This is particularly true of testing for infectious disease and cancer.
At the same time that local pathology and clinical laboratories have this opportunity to provide useful new molecular and genetic tests to physicians in their community, questions often remain about how to assess the clinical value of performing a molecular diagnostic test versus the cost of performing that assay. Adequate reimbursement is another equally important part of the decision to offer a new molecular or genetic test.
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Apr 29, 2009 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Officials in Mexico were criticized as being slow to respond to the spread of A/H1N1 swine flu on Tuesday, April 28. Mexico was reported to have failed to deliver medicine to the families of the dead, two weeks after the first confirmed death from the flu, the Associated Press reported. Also, the government had not determined where the outbreak began or how it spread, the AP said. In Mexico, 159 people may have died of swine flu, but only seven of these deaths have been verified as A/H1N1 by laboratory tests, the New York Times reported today (April 29).
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