Oct 23, 2013 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Improved diagnostic technologies and more sophisticated software tools allow innovative clinical lab managers to more precisely measure the accuracy of their lab’s analytical results VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA—In this beautiful port city, a national gathering of clinical laboratory and anatomic pathology experts convened last week and tackled serious issues concerning the accuracy and integrity of the diagnostic test results produced by labs in Canada and other developed nations. One...
Sep 23, 2013 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
As healthcare systems make patient safety a greater priority, the public reporting of pathology errors in Canada has no comparable track record in the United States Errors in anatomic pathology testing in the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan made media headlines this summer. In each case, it was just a limited number of cases where errors at pathology labs resulted in inaccurate diagnoses and, in at least one case, a needless mastectomy for a patient. At a time when health...
Apr 23, 2012 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Pathology
Public awaits findings from board of inquiry empaneled by the Alberta Health System Once more, a province in Canada is dealing with public disclosure of unacceptable rates of errors in anatomic pathology testing services. This time it is the healthcare system of Alberta. Since November, the public has learned about two separate cases of individual pathologists who were determined to have misdiagnosed cancer cases. But pathology errors turned out to be only part of this story. Public concern in...
Apr 9, 2012 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Critics of an inquiry into histopathology errors at the Royal Bristol Infirmary argue that as many as 6,800 cases over eight year may have errors in diagnosis In Bristol, England, the issue of serious errors in the anatomic pathology service of the Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI) during the years 2000 to 2008 refuses to go away. Earlier this year, critics of an inquiry commissioned by the parent health trust became vocal once again after public notice was given of plans to consolidate...
Dec 15, 2010 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
New National Pathology Council Will Tackle Quality Issues, But Pathologist Understaffing Remains in Some Regions In Canada, anatomic pathology has a public black eye due to disclosures of pathology misdiagnoses occurring in multiple medical laboratories over the past six years. One big lesson from these events is that public trust in the integrity of clinical laboratory tests is a precious asset that must be protected. Now comes news that pathologists in Canada will squarely address the issue...
