Jul 20, 2009 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Best Investigative Reporting honors earned for story about problems with Vitamin D testing
Top honors in a prestigious national journalism competition were recently awarded to our sister publication, The Dark Report. Editor-In-Chief Robert L. Michel traveled to Washington, DC, to accept the first place award for “Best Investigative Reporting.”
The occasion was the 33rd annual conference of the Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA). Handing Editor Robert Michel his first place award was Nora O’Donnell, News Anchor and Political Reporter for NBC News and MSNBC. (more…)
Jun 26, 2009 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
New Study to Research if Supplements of Vitamin D, Fish Oil Reduce Health Risks
With the volume of Vitamin D testing skyrocketing in clinical laboratories across the nation, leave it to government bureaucrats to work at counter purposes to each other. With one hand, the federal Medicare program is proposing to restrict coverage guidelines and reimbursement for Vitamin D testing to Medicare patients. With another hand, the federally-funded National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funding a large, multi-year study to assess the effect Vitamin D supplements and fish oil have in reducing health risks!
Researchers at Harvard Medical School will investigate whether taking daily dietary supplements of Vitamin D or fish oil reduces the risk of developing cancer, heart disease, and stroke in people with no previous history of such illness. Under a $20 million grant from the National Institutes of Health Institutes, researchers from Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, will recruit 20,000 participants for the study nationwide. (more…)
Mar 11, 2009 | Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Consumers raise the bar on expectations of error-free healthcare
Multiple cases of medical errors hit the headlines in recent months. Collectively, these headlines raise an interesting point. Patients and the public at large have changed expectations about the quality of healthcare. Consumers increasingly expect medical services to be error-free. When news surfaces that a provider committed a pattern of medical errors over an extended period of time, it becomes a major news story. (more…)
