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 systems in Canada, the United States, and other developed nations are giving great emphasis to patient safety, disclosure of life-changing diagnostic errors to patients is appropriate. Consumers are holding physicians—including surgical pathologists—to a higher standard of care. (more…)
Oct 24, 2012 | Digital Pathology, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Pathologists and clinical laboratory directors can learn from other industries about how to better achieve quality and cost goals
Why are pathology groups, clinical laboratories, and the majority of healthcare providers so slow to borrow innovative approaches from commercial businesses that measurably improve patient service, quality, and satisfaction? No less an authority than, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has taken the entire healthcare system to task for being so slow to adopt proven innovations that are being rapidly taken up by non-healthcare industries.
These findings were published in a report recently issued by the Institute of Medicine. Authors of the report found that when it comes to quality, outcomes, cost, and equity, healthcare falls short when compared to other industries. (more…)
