May 15, 2017 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Low-cost assay would be a boon in remote areas, war zones, and emergency departments by providing fast and reliable blood typing without the need for specialized clinical lab equipment, and by reducing demand on type-O blood supplies
Chinese researchers claim to have invented an inexpensive point-of-care (POC), paper-based blood test that can determine a patient’s blood type in seconds and with nearly perfect accuracy.
Such an inexpensive, simple-to-use assay would be game changing for pathology groups and clinical laboratories since traditional tests to classify blood into blood groups remain time consuming and labor intensive despite recent advances.
Changing Colors Reveal Blood Type
Hong Zhang and colleagues at Third Military Medical University in Chongqing, China, published their results in the March 15, 2017, issue of Science Translational Medicine. (more…)
May 12, 2017 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing, Management & Operations
Unorthodox approach could one day provide clinical laboratories with new market opportunities to offer patients diagnostic services
Patients turning to the Internet to learn about medical ailments, chronic disease, medical laboratory tests, or pathology treatments is nothing remarkable these days. The Internet has become ubiquitous to patients who are engaged in their own healthcare. However, crowdsourcing medical problems to find probable diagnoses for rare medical conditions is a novel approach that is gaining in popularity.
Crowdsourcing is a relatively new type of project outsourcing. It involves acquiring specialized advice, services, and other contributions from a large group of qualified individuals who provide their work through the Internet from locations all over the globe.
The general idea is that more brains are better than few or one when it comes to completing tricky projects. It was only a matter of time before crowdsourcing discovered healthcare and companies sprang up to provide it as a service to patients with difficult-to-diagnose conditions, and to the physicians who are treating them. (more…)
Apr 28, 2017 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Sixty-seven percent of surveyed consumers age 45-64 would use telehealth for chronic care management; 79% say video telehealth services would be beneficial in coordinating and administering care of ill and aging relatives
According to a newly released survey, there is a growing interest in telehealth services among healthcare consumers in the US. It’s safe to assume that millennials and “X’ers” are driving this trend. But what does it mean for clinical laboratories?
If certain patients are selecting practices based on digital access to their primary care doctors and medical information, isn’t it also likely those patients also will want similar digital access to their medical laboratory in several dimensions? For example, to: (more…)
Apr 17, 2017 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
Pathologists could benefit if postmortem genetic testing becomes more commonplace following incidents of sudden unexpected death
Pathologists are discovering that molecular autopsy, also called postmortem molecular testing, could boost the chance of discovering the likely or plausible cause of sudden unexpected death, according to preliminary results from a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Researchers led by Ali Torkamani, PhD, Director of Genome Informatics at the Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) and Assistant Professor of Molecular and Experimental Medicine at the Scripps Research Institute, sequenced samples from 25 sudden death cases. They identified: (more…)
Apr 14, 2017 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
In studies, the automated microbial susceptibility testing device for smartphone performed with 98.2% accuracy, meeting FDA criteria
Imagine doing antimicrobial susceptibility testing outside a clinical laboratory. That’s the goal of researchers on the West Coast who are developing a smartphone-based diagnostic device with the capability of performing this type of point-of-care testing (POCT).
This new mobile POCT device is under development at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA). It promises to bring antimicrobial susceptibility testing—a routine procedure in the most medical laboratories—to remote, resource-limited areas of the world.
The device, which attaches directly to a smartphone, contains an automated diagnostic test reader that examines the body’s antimicrobial resistance, according to a UCLA news release. (more…)
Apr 7, 2017 | Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing, Management & Operations
Medical laboratories now taking the steps to deliver patient-centric lab testing services report solid successes in improving patient/physician satisfaction, increasing lab revenue, and gaining more network access
Evidence is accumulating that “patient-centric” medical laboratory testing services are poised to become one of the most important new paradigms to reshape the house of pathology and clinical laboratory medicine in decades. Better yet, patient-centric lab services will earn more revenue for those labs that move fastest to incorporate these capabilities into their service mix.
“The paradigm of patient-center lab testing services couldn’t come at a better time for the clinical laboratory industry. Most labs are reeling from what is now nearly a full decade of successive and painful reductions in lab test prices and lab budgets,” observed Robert Michel, Editor-in-Chief of The Dark Report, which is Dark Daily’s sister publication. “After years of aggressive cost-cutting, most labs are down to the bare essentials and staff is overworked. That is why there is an urgent need for an operational and clinical strategy that will earn more payment from payers. (more…)
