Jan 18, 2016 | Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
Pathologists and clinical lab managers will not be surprised to learn that Epic leads the competitive electronic health record system market, as ranked by SK&A
No one will be surprised that, in one company’s rankings of the top electronic health record (EHR) systems for 2015, the number one position is held by Epic Systems Corporation. More broadly, about half the market share of EHR systems is concentrated among just five EHR vendors.
Overall Ranking of Top 10 EHR Vendors in 2015
The report from SK&A outlines the top 10 EHR vendors by overall market share during 2015 as follows:
EHR Vendor and Market Share %
1) Epic Systems Corporation 11.6%
2) eClinicalWorks 10.2%
3) Allscripts 8.7%
4) Practice Fusion 6.7%
5) NextGen Healthcare 5.5%
6) General Electric Healthcare IT 3.6%
7) Cerner Corporation 3.5%
8) Athenahealth, Inc. 3.3%
9) McKesson Provider Technologies 3.2%
10) Amazing Charts Inc. 2.3% (more…)
Jan 11, 2016 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
Goal is to enable gene sequencing data to reside in EMRs, which would provide pathologists and clinical lab professionals with an opportunity to add value
More federal grant money is available to speed up research designed to make it possible to incorporate genome information into the electronic medical record (EMR). This is a development that can have both positive and negative consequences for clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is awarding more than $48.6 million in grants to researchers seeking to better understand the clinical implications of genomic information and determine the best ways to deliver news to patients when their genetic data indicates they may be predisposed to certain diseases or medical conditions.
The grants are administered by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and represent the third phase of the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) program. This is a national consortium working to move genomics research closer to clinical application by identifying the potential medical effects of rare genomic variants in about 100 clinically-relevant genes. (more…)
Jan 6, 2016 | Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing, Management & Operations
Tableau Software, IBM, Apple and others are building a future where analysis of clinical data guides personalized medicine, fuels research, and helps reduce healthcare costs
Use of big data in healthcare is poised to become a big business. That’s because new players in data analytics have begun to help providers and accountable care organizations (ACOs) effectively use data to improve their business operations, personalize care for patients, and/or discover new medical insights.
Because more than 70% of a typical patient’s permanent medical record consists of clinical laboratory laboratory test data, pathologists and medical laboratory scientists have a stake in the growth of big-data analytics, which are a core component in healthcare’s journey toward personalized medicine. (more…)
Dec 30, 2015 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
The VirScan test gives doctors insight into a patient’s lifetime exposure to viruses and thus may be developed into a useful medical laboratory test
Scientists and pathologists are learning that blood is like a time capsule, holding precious information about exposure to viruses over the years—chickenpox at five, mononucleosis at 18, flu at 40. You get the idea.
Now, researchers at Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) have found a way to tap that entire data stream, so to speak. An inexpensive blood test, they say, reveals every virus that has passed through the body over time.
New Discoveries Could Lead to a Useful Clinical Laboratory Test
The testing method, called VirScan by researchers, is an efficient alternative to current medical laboratory tests that test for specific viruses one at a time, according to an HHMI news statement about the new technology. (more…)
Dec 28, 2015 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
Researchers’ prototype uses lab-on-a-chip technology and seems to do it all, from collection and analysis to results in minutes and in the palm of your hand
Here’s a diagnostic workhorse that can also easily slip inside the pocket of a doctor’s white coat. The slim device, created and reported by researchers, integrates a clinical laboratory’s workflow from collecting samples to analyzing them and reporting results in minutes.
The device is dubbed “lab in a needle” by researchers at Houston Methodist and their collaborators at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech). The recently announced study focused on liver toxicity. But the research team says in a news statement that their medical laboratory-in-a-needle has potential to diagnose and monitor therapies for many health conditions in settings well beyond the medical laboratory and hospital.
For clinical laboratory leaders and pathologists, the prototype can be seen as another step forward in efforts to develop more sophisticated point-of-care testing (POCT) that incorporate miniature lab-on-a-chip (LOC) technologies. Mass production could bring the tiny mobile lab’s capabilities to remote and rural communities where low cost and ease of use are essential. (more…)
Dec 11, 2015 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
Researchers demonstrate that the length of blood telomeres may follow a specific pattern before cancer is detectable, which could lead to new diagnostic tests for detecting cancer in its early stages
Pathologists and Clinical pathology laboratories could soon have another tool to aid in the early detection of cancer. New research findings indicate that telomeres could serve as biomarkers for cancer if the right testing is done at the right times.
This study was conducted by Northwestern Medicine, (a collaboration between Northwestern Memorial HealthCare and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine) and Harvard University. It was titled “Blood Telomere Length Attrition and Cancer Development in the Normative Aging Study Cohort”. The findings bring scientists a step closer to understanding how telomeres change with the onset of cancer.
Predictive Biomarker for Cancer Might Be Used in Clinical Lab Testing
“Understanding this pattern of telomere growth may mean it can be a predictive biomarker for cancer,” said Lifang Hou, MD, PhD, the study’s lead author and a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in a Northwestern Medicine news release. “Because we saw a strong relationship in the pattern across a wide variety of cancers, with the right testing these procedures could be used to eventually diagnose a wide variety of cancers.” (more…)
