May 11, 2016 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center makes headlines by opting to pay bitcoin ransom in order to quickly regain control of its computer systems
In recent weeks, hackers temporarily shut down MedStar Health—one of the biggest healthcare systems in the Washington, D.C. region—in the latest example of why cyberattacks are a threat not only to hospitals, but to anatomic pathology labs and clinical laboratories as well.
This latest incident is another example of a “ransomware” attack in which cybercriminals lock out computer users from accessing critical records and files. They then extort money by posting a digital ransom note warning users they must pay a ransom amount within a specific number of days if they want the digital key that will release their data.
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Jan 30, 2012 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Cheaper, faster, and more accurate rapid gene sequencing technologies show great promise in identifying infectious disease agents
In clinical laboratories across the nation, microbiology has greatly benefited from the introduction of molecular diagnostics in clinical practice. Now the field of microbiology is poised to undergo a more profound transformation of clinical practice, due to advances in whole genome sequencing.
Leaders in this field are calling these developments “transformative” and say they have the potential to change “all aspects of microbiology.” The driver to this emerging trend is advanced technology that makes it possible to sequence the whole gene sequence of an organism in a day or less, for a cost that is $1,000 and falling rapidly.
In the past six months, microbiologists and pathologists at such hospitals as Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, have begun to do whole genome sequencing of microbes found in specimens collected from patients arriving in the emergency room. The New York Times wrote about these developments in a story titled “The New Generation of Microbe Hunters,” that it published on August 29, 2011.
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