AUSTIN, Texas (August 27, 2019) The clinical laboratory industry is increasingly revolving around hospitals, health systems, and other integrated care delivery networks. Laboratories continue to be challenged with reimbursement reductions, value-based contracting demands, financial outcomes measured as total cost of care, not to mention a demand for complex and costly technologies.
“These factors, along with many others, contribute to the need for laboratory directors and hospital and health system executives to now consider alternatives to traditional practice models,” stated Robert L. Michel, Editor-In-Chief of The Dark Report. “Considering these emerging lab business models goes hand-in-hand with the challenge of determining those alternatives which are viable for their particular organization.”
An all-new webinar, “How to Assess the Potential of Your Hospital or Health Network Laboratory During This Era of Declining Lab Reimbursement, Integrated Care Models, and Personalized Medicine, being held Wednesday, August 28, 2019 at 1 PM EDT, is a must-attend event for every member of the hospital, health system, or lab team responsible for the research and consideration of emerging laboratory business models such as joint ventures, affiliations, and partnership models. During this webinar, answers to tough questions will be provided, in addition to the information needed to make the right decisions for the laboratory—those that will enhance patient care, while enabling fiscal responsibility and ongoing financial success.
Attendees will learn how instituting strong medical leadership including physicians, operational leaders, medical technologists, and others— plus preserving onsite clinical expertise, enabling access to external support including innovative reimbursement strategies and technologies, along with the introduction of other key principles, can effectively contribute to their lab’s long-term health and financial sustainability.
Expert presenters are Jerry W. Hussong, MD, MBA, Chief Executive Officer, Sonic Healthcare USA, and Paul Fiedler, MD, Chair, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Western Connecticut Health Network.
During the 60-minute session, which will include an interactive Q&A session, webinar participants will:
Examine the top 3 market shifts around integrated care delivery that most affect clinical labs
Explore the value of joint ventures, affiliations, and externals partnerships and how they can enhance medical care and improve a lab’s bottom line
Compare the specific challenges of make vs. outsource vs. partnership business decisions
Be able to identify appropriate opportunities for the lab and the associated due diligence considerations
Evaluate the factors contributing to a sustainable partnership, including integrating local infrastructure and clinical expertise with external resources and technologies
Understand how to apply medical leadership principles to set the foundation for high-quality, cost-effective integrated patient care
For more information about “How to Assess the Potential of Your Hospital or Health Network Laboratory During This Era of Declining Lab Reimbursement, Integrated Care Models, and Personalized Medicine,” and to view webinar details, click here.
About THE DARK REPORT
Established in 1995, THE DARK REPORT is the leading source of exclusive business intelligence for laboratory CEOs, COOs, CFOs, Pathologists and Senior industry executives. It is widely read by leaders in laboratory medicine and diagnostics. The Dark Report produces the famous Executive War College on Laboratory and Pathology Management every spring, which showcases innovations by the nation’s and globe’s leading laboratory organizations. Dark Daily is an Internet-based e-briefing intelligence service, read worldwide by thought leaders in laboratory and pathology management. Other well-known conferences conducted by THE DARK REPORT are Lab Quality Confab (on the use of Lean and Six Sigma methods in labs and hospitals) and Molecular Summit (on the integration of in vivo and in vitro diagnostics). THE DARK REPORT co-produces Frontiers in Laboratory Medicine annually in the United Kingdom; Executive Edge bi-annually in Canada; and The Business of Pathology bi-annually in Australia.
How to Assess the Potential of Your Hospital or Health Network Laboratory During This Era of Declining Lab Reimbursement, Integrated Care Models, and Personalized Medicine Dark Daily Webinar – Held Wednesday, August 28, 2019 Please contact us at 512-264-7103 or info@darkreport.com for information The clinical laboratory industry is increasingly revolving around hospitals, health systems, and other integrated care delivery networks. Laboratories continue to be challenged with reimbursement...
This new atlas of leukemia proteomes may prove useful for medical laboratories and pathologists providing diagnostic and prognostic services to physicians treating leukemia patients
Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center created the online atlases—categorized into adult and pediatric datasets—to “provide quantitative, molecular hallmarks of leukemia; a broadly applicable computational approach to quantifying heterogeneity and similarity in molecular data; and a guide to new therapeutic targets for leukemias,” according to the Leukemia Atlases website.
In building the Leukemia Proteome Atlases, the researchers identified and classified protein signatures that are present when patients are diagnosed with AML. Their goal is to improve survival rates and aid scientific research for this deadly disease, as well as develop personalized, effective precision medicine treatments for patients.
To perform the study, the scientists looked at the proteomic screens of 205
biopsies of patients with AML and analyzed the genetic, epigenetic, and
environmental diversity in the cancer cells. Their analysis “revealed 154 functional
patterns based on common molecular pathways, 11 constellations of correlated
functional patterns, and 13 signatures that stratify the outcomes of patients.”
Amina Qutub, PhD, Associate Professor at UTSA and one of the authors of the research, told UTSA Today, “Acute myelogenous leukemia presents as a cancer so heterogeneous that it is often described as not one, but a collection of diseases.”
“To decipher the clues found in proteins from blood and bone marrow of leukemia patients, we developed a new computer analysis—MetaGalaxy—that identifies molecular hallmarks of leukemia,” noted Amina Qutub, PhD (above), UTSA Professor of Biomedical Engineering and one of the UTSA study’s authors. “These hallmarks are analogous to the way constellations guide navigation of the stars: they provide a map to protein changes for leukemia,” she concluded. (Photo copyright: UTSA.)
To better understand the proteomic levels associated with AML, and share their work globally with other scientists, the researchers created the Leukemia Proteome Atlases web portal. The information is displayed in an interactive format and divided into adult and pediatric databases. The atlases provide quantitative, molecular hallmarks of AML and a guide to new therapeutic targets for the disease.
The NCI predicts there will be approximately 21,540 new
cases of AML diagnosed this year. They will account for about 1.2% of all new
cancer cases. The disease will be responsible for approximately 10,920 deaths in
2019, or 1.8% of all cancer deaths. In 2016, there were an estimated 61,048
people living with AML in the US.
“Our ‘hallmark’ predictions are being experimentally tested
through drug screens and can be ‘programmed’
into cells through synthetic manipulation of proteins,” Qutub continued. “A
next step to bring this work to the clinic and impact
patient care is testing whether these signatures lead to the aggressive growth
or resistance to chemotherapy observed in
leukemia patients.
“At the same time, to rapidly accelerate research in
leukemia and advance the hunt for treatments,
we provide the hallmarks in an online compendium [LeukemiaAtlas.org] where fellow
researchers and oncologists worldwide can build from the resource, tools, and
findings.”
By mapping AML patients from the proteins present in their
blood and bone marrow, the researchers hope that healthcare professionals will
be able to better categorize patients into risk groups and improve treatment
outcomes and survival rates for this aggressive form of cancer.
The Leukemia Proteome Atlases are another example of the
trend where researchers work together to compile data from patients and share
that information with other scientists and medical professionals. Hopefully, having
this type of data readily available in a searchable database will enable
researchers—as well as clinical laboratory scientists and pathologists—to gain
a better understanding of AML and benefit cancer patients through improved
diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring.
AUSTIN, Texas (June 1, 2018) – Medicine is rapidly shifting from a traditional one-size-fits-all approach to an individualized predictive and personalized medicine model, with care customized for each patient. Uniquely positioned within this shifting healthcare paradigm are molecular and clinical laboratories that can provide healthcare teams with access to a rich repository of actionable genetic data.
Pathologists are becoming the point persons as personalized medicine becomes the norm. With next generation sequencing (NGS) accelerating the pace of discoveries, prevention and treatment will no longer be centered around “standards of care” that result in a predetermined sequence of therapies. Instead, a patient’s genome, lifestyle, and environment will combine to pinpoint an effective and individualized treatment plan.
“Because NGS is the engine powering much of this new genetic information and igniting the potential of personalized medicine, clinical laboratories have an ideal opportunity to add clinical value and generate a new revenue source by adopting NGS technologies,” said Robert L. Michel, Editor-In-Chief of The Dark Report. “But because the NGS modality places significant demands on most current laboratory information systems and leaves them lacking crucial functionality, labs need to have in place a LIMS specifically designed to accommodate personalized medicine’s informatics integration and workflow challenges in order to successfully integrate NGS.”
Addressing the important topic of next-generation sequencing (NGS) is a recently published White Paper from The Dark Report, entitled “How Next-Generation Sequencing Helps Molecular Laboratories Deliver Personalized Medicine Services to their Client Physicians.” Published by The Dark Report and Dark Daily, it is available free to laboratory professionals as a PDF download.
This White Paper discusses the growing role of NGS in clinical care and its potential to fuel the transformation to predictive medicine, as well as pathologists’ contributions to this emerging paradigm and the laboratory information technology and informatics they will need to remain at the forefront of change. Because NGS services represent a major financial commitment by laboratories, the advantages of using NGS testing as a tool to retain and grow a lab’s customer base is also examined.
The paper provides a detailed discussion regarding:
The growing role of NGS in clinical care
NGS’ return on investment for clinical and molecular laboratories
The role of pathologists, as NGS accelerates the transition to predictive and personalized medicine
The information technology and tools laboratories need to successfully offer NGS-based services
Benefits of outsourcing annotation and interpretation of gene sequences and test-result reporting
What clinical and molecular laboratories need to know about marketing NGS services to new and existing clients
Medicine is transforming from reactive to proactive, predictive care—with NGS on the verge of being transformative in many ways as it provides a direction destined to accelerate the shift in care models, and ushers in personalized medicine at the genomic level. Pathologists are uniquely qualified to advance the cause of personalized medicine among regulators, insurers, providers, and patients, but can only do so if the best health informatics technology is at their fingertips. To learn more, download “How Next-Generation Sequencing Helps Molecular Laboratories Deliver Personalized Medicine Services to their Client Physicians” here. This is a free publication of Dark Daily, comprised of a growing library of White Papers and other information resources tailored specifically to the needs of laboratory administrators, lab managers, pathologists, and lab industry consultants.
For additional information, Contact: Chris Garcia at 512-264-7103
About THE DARK REPORT
Established in 1995, THE DARK REPORT is the leading source of exclusive business intelligence for laboratory CEOs, COOs, CFOs, Pathologists and Senior industry executives. It is widely read by leaders in laboratory medicine and diagnostics. The Dark Report produces the famous Executive War College on Laboratory and Pathology Management every spring, which showcases innovations by the nation’s and globe’s leading laboratory organizations. Dark Daily is an Internet-based e-briefing intelligence service, read worldwide by thought leaders in laboratory and pathology management. Other well-known conferences conducted by THE DARK REPORT are Lab Quality Confab (on the use of Lean and Six Sigma methods in labs and hospitals) and Molecular Summit (on the integration of in vivo and in vitro diagnostics). THE DARK REPORT co-produces Frontiers in Laboratory Medicine annually in the United Kingdom; Executive Edge bi-annually in Canada; and The Business of Pathology bi-annually in Australia.
Personalized and predictive medicine are rapidly becoming a reality. As a result, your clinical diagnostic laboratory’s need for a laboratory information management system (LIMS) designed to accommodate personalized medicine’s informatics integration and workflow challenges has become vital. The Dark Report is pleased to offer this FREE White Paper, providing a detailed discussion on how you can unlock the potential of next generation sequencing (NGS) technology in your lab, and the benefits and contributions it can make to add clinical value and improve patient care.
