Apr 6, 2009 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Meet the concept of the medical home. It is a managed-care delivery model that charges physicians with coordinating overall care for patients with chronic illnesses. Since its’ inception just a few years ago, it has spread nationwide. Medical home demonstration projects now operate in 22 states. Two states, Rhode Island and North Dakota, have implemented statewide programs.
By design, the medical home is a patient-centered, integrated care model. An important goal is to create a strong, long-term relationship between the physician and the patient. It does this by replacing episodic care based on illness with proactive, coordinated care provided by a physician-led team.
In 2008, the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) introduced standards to determine if a medical practice operates as a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH). These standards meet the definition of a medical home as defined by a consortium that includes the American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Physicians, American Academy of Family Physicians and American Osteopathic Association.
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Apr 1, 2009 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
As more attention is paid to reducing the number of healthcare-associated infections (HIAs), hospitals and health systems respond with proactive programs to eliminate many obvious sources of such infections. In turn, this affects hospital laboratories, since they play a key role in every hospital’s infection control program.
The basic statistics are stunning. Hospital-acquired infections (HIAs) affect nearly 2 million Americans annually, resulting in 90,000 deaths and up to $6.5 billion in extra costs, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
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Mar 30, 2009 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) recently launched Project SwipeIT. This is an ambitious project to motivate the entire healthcare industry to adopt an electronic patient ID system by the end of 2009! The initiative asks insurers, providers, vendors and professional groups to commit to the deadline, as outlined by the Project SwipeIt portal on MGMA’s Website.
MGMA, a trade association of medical practice management professionals, estimates a nationwide electronic patient ID system could save providers $1 billion annually in unnecessary administrative costs and denied claims. Pathologists and laboratory administrators know that adoption of electronic patient ID would be a great benefit for clinical laboratories and pathology group practices.
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Mar 26, 2009 | Digital Pathology, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Digital Pathology Imaging: Coming Soon to a Pathology Group near You!
Will pathologists soon say “sayonara” to glass slides? Plenty of smart money already bets the answer to that question is “yes”! Every pathologist in the United States and abroad should be watching developments in whole slide imaging and digital pathology systems. That’s because digital pathology imaging is a trend with momentum-and it also has the potential to be disruptive, although probably not in the short term.
One powerful sign that digital imaging in pathology is ready to go mainstream is the take-up of digital imaging solutions and digital pathology systems by leading pathology laboratories in the United States and developed countries across the globe. These are academic and tertiary center pathology labs, along with major private pathology companies. As the pathology profession’s first-movers and early adopters, it is these laboratories which set the pace for the entire profession. Their acceptance and growing use of digital imaging and digital pathology systems can be taken as evidence that the current generation of imaging and informatics technologies perform adequately.
However, there is another powerful force propelling digital imaging forward in anatomic pathology. It is the emergence of molecular assays which incorporate digital images and use either computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) or pattern recognition software to help the pathologist make a precise diagnosis. By design, these molecular tests require the pathologist to work from a digital image of the specimen. At The Dark Report‘s second annual Molecular Summit on the Integration of In Vivo and In Vitro Diagnostics, conducted last February in Philadelphia, examples of these types of emerging assays were abundant. (more…)
Mar 25, 2009 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
As previously suggested by earlier Dark Daily e-briefings, studies of the 46 million uninsured Americans suggest there’s more to this statistic than a big number implies. Up to two-thirds of the uninsured either qualify for government-sponsored insurance or could afford to buy coverage.
But no one disagrees that widespread layoffs and elimination of employer-sponsored health coverage are causing the ranks of the uninsured to swell. For every worker who loses health benefits, the multiplier is 3.14-the average size of the U.S. family. Thus, the loss of 3 mllion jobs over the last year translates to about 9.4 million people losing health coverage.
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