Feb 2, 2015 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing, News From Dark Daily
Quest has not yet commented on the lawsuit, which was filed by three individuals who had clinical laboratory tests performed by the nation’s largest public lab company
In California last Thursday, three California residents filed a class action lawsuit charging Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE: DGX) with acquiring competitor medical labs, paying kickbacks to physicians, and developing exclusionary agreements with health insurers to monopolize the market for clinical laboratory testing in Northern California.
Filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the complaint cites violations of the federal Sherman Act and the California Unfair Competition Law, Unfair Practices Act, and the Cartwright Act on behalf of California residents Christi Cruz of San Jose, Colleen Eastman of Hollister, and Carmen Mendez of, Milpitas. All three plaintiffs have used Quest laboratories and paid Quest Diagnostics Incorporated of Madison, New Jersey, for those testing services, the complaint says.
Lawsuit About Clinical Lab Testing Services Filed in Federal Court
The complaint was filed in the court’s San Francisco Division. In the court papers, lawyers for the three plaintiffs explain that injury to competition is manifest in three ways: above-competitive prices, inferior quality of testing, and reduction in choice among providers of routine diagnostic testing. “There is ample evidence that Quest has controlled prices in the relevant market in Northern California since at least 2011,” the complaint explains. (more…)
Jan 30, 2015 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations, News From Dark Daily
Two-day conference attracted an international audience of clinical laboratory scientists and addressed major trends in healthcare and laboratory medicine
DATELINE: BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND—This week in the industrial heartland of the United Kingdom, pathologists and medical laboratory professionals gathered for the 13th Annual Frontiers in Laboratory Medicine (FiLM) conference. The hot topics were new quality management standards for labs in the UK, innovative ways to improve utilization of clinical laboratory tests, and how first mover laboratories in the United Kingdom are using such disruptive technologies as digital pathology and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry.
FiLM is co-produced annual by the Association for Clinical Biochemistry and The Dark Report. Over the past decade, it has grown into the largest conference in Europe that addresses the management and operation of medical laboratories and histopathology laboratories.
New Medical Laboratory Standards include ISO 15189
Currently, medical laboratories in the United Kingdom are adapting to changes in accreditation and external quality assurance (EQA—known as proficiency testing in the United States). By 2018, all labs in the UK will need to be accredited to the standards of ISO 15189: Medical Laboratories. As this happens, the United Kingdom will join a growing list of nations that now use ISO 15189 as a basis for licensure and accreditation of histopathology and medical laboratories. (more…)
Jan 23, 2015 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
Researchers sought to improve the tedious laboratory task of pipetting. Their app-based solution increases productivity, improves safety, and doesn’t rely on expensive robots.
Even something as mundane as pipetting is getting a high-tech makeover and clinical laboratory scientists around the world are likely to benefit from an innovation that incorporates an iPad into the pipetting process.
Scientists at the prestigious Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently unveiled the iPipet system. This in an innovative system which employs tablet computers such as iPads to guide the tedious and often dangerous task of manual pipetting, according to a news release.
As pathologists and clinical laboratory workers know, many busy laboratories rely on robotic pipetting to avoid risky manual processes. And while technically able to perform higher volumes of tests, robotic pipetting is extremely expensive and requires technical support personnel that many labs cannot afford. This is why Whitehead’s iPad application, which makes the process more productive and accurate, is a positive development. It’s also important to note that iPipet protects technologists’ jobs (as opposed to robots), and iPipet may be easier to learn and less expensive for labs to adopt, as well. (more…)
Jan 21, 2015 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Many of these new technologies could help pathologists develop new diagnostic tests and offer medical laboratories opportunities to expand their services
Pathologists and clinical laboratory scientists tracking the hottest new diagnostic technologies may be in interested in the 2014 list of “Top Ten Innovations” recently published by The Scientist.
This is a competition and each year The Scientist has a panel of five experts in life sciences review the entries. Among this year’s Top Ten Innovations are promising diagnostic tools and new technologies with the potential to disrupt the current state of healthcare. In the near future, most of these technologies will be used by researchers to better understand the underlying, genetic cause of diseases and advance new treatments. However, some of these innovative technologies have already been adopted for clinical use. Others are probably several years away from becoming the basis for new medical laboratory tests.
Here is a short overview of The Scientist magazine’s list of “Top Ten Innovations for 2014.” (more…)
Jan 19, 2015 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
If validated in clinical trials, this novel technology has the potential to shift some glucose testing from the clinical laboratory by offering diabetics a convenient, painless blood sugar test
Glucose testing is both a headache and an opportunity for clinical laboratories here in the United States and across the globe. It is a headache because many point-of-care and patient self-test glucose devices in wide use today lack the reliability of glucose testing performed in medical laboratories that use sophisticated diagnostic instruments.
It is an opportunity because, here in the United States and across the globe, there are tens of millions of type 2 diabetics and hundreds of millions of pre-diabetics. Health systems have an unmet demand for glucose testing that is non-invasive, accurate, can be done in patient care settings, and is cheap.
Recently, researchers at Princeton University announced development of noninvasive, in vivo glucose sensor technology that uses a broad-spectrum band of infrared (IR) light to accurately measure blood sugar.
The clinical market for such a device is huge. Just in the United States, there are more than 30 million diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and more than 70 million pre-diabetics. Researchers have been working for some time to develop a patient-friendly glucose-monitoring technology that does not require a needle stick or venipuncture. (more…)
Jan 16, 2015 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
This new device will likely to be disruptive to clinical laboratories, as it can noninvasively diagnose at least 16 diseases and conditions
Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers who are fans of Star Trek will be interested to learn that a real-life “Tricorder” medical diagnostic device may be just around the corner. Officials of the XPRIZE organization recently announced 10 finalists who are competing to build a working Tricorder capable of monitoring multiple vital signs and identifying specific disease states.
Erik Viirre, M.D., Ph.D., Technical and Medical Director for the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE, announced the 10 finalists last fall. Their devices may have a disruptive impact on medical laboratories, particularly if they lead to inexpensive, self-diagnostic tools that are capable of immediately running most lab tests.
Launched in January 2012 by the XPRIZE Foundation, which organizes international competitions to advance innovation, this life sciences contest to make the tricorder a reality is offering $10 million (£6m) in prize money. (See Dark Daily, “Pathologists and Clinical Lab Scientists: Design a Modern “Tricorder” and You Could Win $10 Million From the XPRIZE Foundation!,” March 22, 2013.) (more…)
