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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Canadian Province’s Plan to Begin Next-Generation Gene Sequencing of Newborns Shows Growing Role in Clinical Care for Genome-Guided Medicine

Utah-based Tute Genomics and UNIConnect will partner with Newborn Screening Ontario to uncover rare but treatable diseases in newborns

In the Canadian province of Ontario, next-generation gene sequencing will soon be part of newborn screening. This development is another confirmation for clinical laboratory managers and pathologists that genetic information from such diagnostic testing is contributing to improvements in clinical care.

Newborn Screening Ontario (NSO) is teaming up with Tute Genomics of Provo, Utah, and UNIConnect of Sandy, Utah, to enhance the province’s testing program for rare but treatable diseases in newborns.

The Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care is contracting with NSO to offer a next-generation sequencing testing panel and a multiple ligation-dependent probe amplification assay for the diagnostic confirmation of a variety of disorders. (more…)

IBM Watson Health to Acquire Truven Health Analytics and Its Millions of Patient Records for $2.6 Billion

IBM Health’s data combined with Truven’s patient records will create an enormous big-data collection representing 300 million patient lives

If any pathologist or clinical laboratory manager still doubts the importance of healthcare big data, the multi-billion-dollar acquisition of Truven Health Analytics by IBM should put those doubts to rest.

Last month, IBM Corp. (NYSE:IBM) announced an agreement to acquire Truven Health Analytics, (Truven) for $2.6 billion. Truven is a provider of cloud-based healthcare, analytics, and insights and is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. (more…)

Comparison of In Vitro Diagnostic Industry’s Top Five Trends for 2015 and 2016 Reveals Rapid Technology Advances Intended to Give Clinical Laboratories New Diagnostic Tools

Of the five trends described in a report published by Kalorama, only two made the list for both years: Consolidation within the IVD industry and growth in molecular point of care

What a difference one year can make in the most significant trends influencing the in vitro diagnostics (IVD) industry, which also influences clinical laboratories, the largest customers of IVD manufacturers. These insights come from comparing the top five IVD trends for 2016 as identified by Kalorama Information from its top five IVD trends that it says dominated during 2015.

Kalorama is a division of MarketResearch.com, a company that publishes market research in the life sciences. In a report titled, “Five IVD Market Trends to Watch for in 2016,” it published its picks for the top five trends in IVD testing for 2016. The five most prominent trends recognized by the healthcare research marketer are as follows: (more…)

Clinical Chemists and Medical Laboratory Scientists Gather in Chicago for American Association of Clinical Chemistry and ASCLS Joint Meeting

Among the hundreds of lab industry vendors exhibiting, there were more companies showing LIS and lab informatics products this year than last year

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS—Anytime 20,000 clinical chemists and medical laboratory scientists gather in the same place, at the same time, there is sure to be many different opinions about the state of laboratory medicine and key trends in the clinical laboratory testing marketplace.

That was certainly true of this year’s annual meetings of the American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC) and the American Society of Clinical Laboratory Scientists (ASCLS) that took place here in the Windy City and ended yesterday. Your Dark Daily editor was in attendance and saw many interesting things during the exhibition, which opened on Tuesday and closed Thursday.

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CVS MinuteClinic to Use Epic EMR in Support of Nationwide Growth Plan, also Opens Possibility of Accessing Clinical Laboratory Data from Local Providers

It’s an interesting statement about how CVS, the national pharmacy chain, believes it can expand its MinuteClinic health services while also integrating data feeds with HIEs

In another demonstration of how fast healthcare is transforming, the pharmacy chain CVS Caremark Corp. will implement the Epic electronic medical record system (EMR) in its MinuteClinic sites nationwide. This means MinuteClinic clinicians will be using the same EMR as a growing number of hospitals and office-based physicians.

What may make this development noteworthy for pathologists and clinical laboratory managers is that use of the EpicCare EMR system sold by Epic Systems Corp. of Verona, Wisconsin, is that MinuteClinic sites will make it easier for CVS to pass clinical data it gathers to regional health information exchanges (HIEs). (more…)

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