Could clinical laboratories use texting to improving patient compliance with the medical laboratory test orders given to them by their doctors?
California’s largest physician-owned medical practice has
employed text messaging to reduce patient no-shows. Just as other innovations such
as same-day walk-in clinical laboratory
testing and patient at-home self-testing made it easier for patients to comply
with physicians’ lab test orders, text messaging appears to help get more
patients through the doors and into doctors’ exam rooms.
At least that’s the experience at Riverside Medical Clinic
(RMC) in Riverside, Calif. The multi-specialty practice has more than 170
providers who see more than 400,000 patients annually. After struggling to
lower its 15% baseline no-show rate using a phone-only reminder system, RMC turned
to a two-way texting appointment reminder system from Santa Barbara, Calif.-based
WELL Health (WELL).
According to a case
study, prior to the texting
system implementation, no-shows were costing RMC more than $3 million per year.
“The problem we were trying to resolve was getting a hold of our
patients in an expedient manner without having to do redundant work,” Diego
Galvez-Ramirez, Associate Vice President, Patient Business Services at
Riverside Medical Clinic, told Healthcare IT News. “We wanted to
give time back to our staff. A big frustration was not having enough time for
staff to accomplish their duties.”
After RMC implemented WELL’s HIPAA-compliant text-based reminder
system, front office efficiency and productivity improved, and the practice
experienced a 33% decrease in appointment no-shows.
Additionally:
No-shows decreased from 15% to 10% within the
first month of going live across the enterprise.
Confirmed appointments rose from 29.45% to
94.45%, translating to a savings of more than $40,000 in two months.
91% of patients who confirmed via WELL presented
for their visit.
Phone volume at RMC’s two call centers decreased
by 4% to 6%.
Galvez-Ramirez suggests that healthcare providers—including
clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups—keep pace with the
realities of today’s connected world. “Most of the time, the cell phone is not
used to make phone calls,” he told Healthcare IT News. “You have to adapt
to the new ways that your patients want and are used to communicating.
“In our environment,” he continued, “you also have to be
quick to respond to your patients. No patient wants to spend unnecessary time
on a phone call. Being able to send them their appointment to their phone is
not a new concept, it’s an expectation.”
Based on an Axway survey of 1,200 smartphone users aged 18-60, the graphic above supports the view that text messaging is now the preferred method of communications for most people. Could clinical laboratories employ text messaging to lower patient no-shows and increase the proportion of patients who actually show up at a patient service center to provide a specimen in response to the medical laboratory test orders given to them by their physicians? (Graphic copyright: MakingCharts.com/Axway.)
The WELL messaging app draws a patient’s information from the
physician’s electronic
health record (EHR) system to configure the appointment reminder. This
includes appointment type, date/time, and location. Based on the patient’s
preferred method, the system sends reminder messages via phone, text, or e-mail.
As Healthcare IT News noted, WELL’s competitors in the
patient communication space include:
Texting Reduces No-Shows at Other Healthcare Networks
Other healthcare organizations also have replicated RMC’s
success in reducing its no-show rates by moving away from telephone-based
reminders.
An Athena Health
study examined 54.3 million patient visits in 2015 and found no-show rates
dropped to 4.4% when patients received a reminder text from their provider. By
comparison:
Athena patients who received a phone call
instead of a text failed to show up 9.4% of the time;
E-mail reminders resulted in a 5.9% no-show rate;
and,
10.5% of patients who received no form of
reminder message missed their appointments.
Is Texting Secure and HIPAA Compliant?
A 2018 poll conducted by the Medical
Group Management Association (MGMA) found that 68% of healthcare organizations
used text messaging to communicate with patients about appointments. But is it
secure?
An MGMA
article notes that according to HIPAA Journal,
“Recent changes to HIPAA
have introduced new rules relating to how Protected
Health Information (PHI) should be communicated and many healthcare
organizations and other covered entities are now at risk of financial sanctions
and legal action should an avoidable breach of PHI occur.” The MGMA goes on to
state that, “As text messaging is not typically a fully-secure channel for the
communication of PHI, practices must be vigilant when sending information via
text messages.”
With proper training and precautions, clinical laboratories and
pathology groups might want to add text messaging to their patient outreach
programs. Data indicate that doing so could improve patient compliance with the
medical lab test orders given to them by their physicians. Industry experts
estimate that for every 100 medical lab test requests written by providers,
only about 60% of patients show up to provide the specimens needed for a lab to
perform those tests. Improving on those numbers would help clinical
laboratories and patients alike.
Though federal law requires hospitals to publicly display their prices, including their medical laboratory test prices, the information can be confusing, hard to find, and overwhelmingly complex
Hospital chargemaster prices can vary dramatically among hospitals that share the same healthcare markets. That’s what California Healthline found in a recent survey of hospitals in Los Angeles and Oakland, Calif. The price differences were huge and could keep patients located in certain areas within those health systems from accessing critical healthcare services.
Price transparency for healthcare services is an important
trend and this survey demonstrates the wide disparity in prices charged by
different hospitals for the same clinical service. This is also true with clinical
laboratory testing services, where the most expensive price for a routine,
highly-automated lab test can be up to 20 times more than the cheapest price.
California Healthline (CHL) is a news service of the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF). CHL recently compared the chargemasters of four hospitals in the Oakland area and four hospitals in the Los Angeles area. It found huge variances in the hospitals’ price lists.
A hospital’s chargemaster lists the full prices of specific
products and services billable to patients or their health plans following
provider care. Although chargemaster rates differ from the lower negotiated
rates insurers pay, they are a guideline for what patients without insurance,
or those seeking out-of-network treatment, could pay for services.
“List prices, chargemaster prices—like a hotel room rate that you might see posted on the door of a hotel room—hardly anybody ever pays that list price,” Barbara Feder Ostrov, Senior Correspondent for California Healthline, Kaiser Health News (KHN), told NBC Los Angeles. “Usually, it’s negotiated,” she added.
Nevertheless, the price differences are considerable. A historical list of the state’s hospital chargemasters, with downloadable spreadsheets, is available on California’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development website.
CMS also requires that the data be machine-readable,
downloadable to a spreadsheet, and updated at least annually.
These lists can be lengthy, with some hospitals providing
pricing for tens of thousands of procedures, services, drugs, medical devices, medical
laboratory tests, and other miscellaneous items.
CMS implemented the law to ensure price transparency for healthcare
consumers and to enable patients to compare prices before selecting which
hospitals to use for medical treatments. The final rule, which CMS says also
benefits policymakers and insurance providers, can assist patients with the
budgeting of any out-of-pocket costs for care.
“[Transparency] allows policymakers to review the prices that are out there,” Barbara Feder Ostrov (above), Senior Correspondent for California Healthline, Kaiser Health News, told NBC Los Angeles. “It lets them say, ‘These are starting prices for negotiations with government and with insurers, and maybe you’re starting a little too high. Can you really justify this price?’” (Photo copyright: Kaiser Health News.)
Transparency Can Confuse Healthcare Consumers
While listing chargemaster prices may serve a valuable
purpose in price transparency, the plethora of billing data and medical codes
can be confusing to healthcare consumers. Usable insight may be lacking in the
multiple screens of data patients encounter.
To determine the exact cost for a healthcare encounter, a patient
would need to know, locate, and calculate all the components of the visit. That
could include which tests will be required, which medicines will be dispensed, and
the facility fee and physician’s charges. Few people would know where to begin
hunting down such information.
Thus, though chargemaster price comparisons can help
patients select a facility for medical tests and services, it is important to
note that chargemasters merely serve as a guideline for what hospitals intend
to charge for their services. People generally do not pay those published rates.
Dark Daily previously published an e-briefing regarding the opportunities and risks for clinical laboratories and pathology groups surrounding chargemasters. It’s important to note that serious enforcement and compliance issues can impact hospitals not prepared to comply with CMS’ transparency guidelines. And medical laboratories are part of that equation.
These initiatives are
a call-to-action for clinical laboratories to contribute their expertise in
support of wellness programs
Two of the largest healthcare systems in America are moving
in non-traditional directions to proactively address certain healthcare
populations. Most recently, Kaiser
Permanente announced it will be investing millions of dollars to tackle
homelessness and the disease outbreaks associated with it. The health system is
even investing in a housing complex in Oakland, Calif., which it hopes will help
patients in that area who face housing insecurity.
Kaiser’s new direction mirrors a similar project by Geisinger Health designed to address the
health of certain populations. In 2017, Geisinger launched what it calls the “Fresh Food Farmacy” for
its adult diabetic and obese patients to give them access to healthy foods. Geisinger
finds this service saves substantial money in downstream medical expenses
because the patients are healthier.
If these programs are harbingers of things to come, clinical
laboratories open to supporting such wellness programs will find
opportunities heading their way.
The housing complex consists of 41-units and is in an area
where existing residents are at risk of displacement due to gentrification.
Kaiser Permanente’s purchase means the complex will be blocked from
redevelopment and will remain affordable for the residents who live there.
“Housing security is a crucial health issue for vulnerable
populations,” Bernard
Tyson, Chairman and CEO at Kaiser Permanente, stated in a news
release. “Access to affordable housing is a key component to Kaiser
Permanente’s mission to improve the health of our members and the communities
we serve.”
This unusual move is part of a larger strategy to invest in
the economic, social, and environmental conditions that impact the health of Kaiser’s
patients. It’s also part of a greater trend toward value-based, proactive
healthcare.
“We know that differences in health are striking in communities with poor social determinants of health such as unstable housing, low income, and unsafe neighborhoods,” said Richard Isaacs, MD, CEO and Executive Director of The Permanente Medical Group, in the news release. “These innovative strategies are critically important steps toward the maintenance of health improvement, consistent health outcomes, and California health equity.” (Photo copyright: Kaiser Permanente.)
Proactive versus Reactive Care
Healthcare delivery in the US is transitioning from
volume-based to value-based care. The Kaiser and Geisinger projects are championing
another equally critical change—proactive care instead of reactive care. This
shift in priorities promises to change how health systems and healthcare
providers think about healthcare delivery. And clinical pathology laboratories play
a critical role in these changes.
“Specifically, in the transition from volume-based to
value-based healthcare, clinical laboratories are called upon to provide
programmatic leadership in reducing total cost of care through optimization of
time-to-diagnosis and time-to-effective therapeutics, optimization of care
coordination, and programmatic support of wellness care, screening, and
monitoring. This call to action is more than working with industry stakeholders
on the basis of our expertise; it is providing leadership in creating the
programs that accomplish these objectives,” James M. Crawford,
MD, PhD, and co-authors, noted in their paper, “Improving American
Healthcare Through Clinical Lab 2.0: Santa Fe Report,” published in the journal
Academic
Pathology.
Food as a Prescription
Patients encounter all sorts of challenges in addition to
housing. Geisinger Health’s Fresh Food Farmacy program promises to help obese
and diabetic patients who face food insecurity maintain healthy diets. Coupled
with exercise, the program acts like medication in helping regulate blood sugar
and improving long-term outcomes for people with diabetes.
Patients in the program are given a referral, called a
prescription, by their primary care physician. Once enrolled, they receive a
welcome kit that includes food measurement instruments, recipes, and
nutritional information. Each week, they also receive enough food to prepare
healthy, nutritious meals twice a day for five days for their families.
Enrolled patients attend weekly support groups to learn
about self-management. And they complete an online wellness class to help them
learn about nutrition. The program also offers free cooking and nutrition
classes taught by dieticians and health coaches.
Proactive, Value-Based Care and Population Health
“With what’s happening in this nation right now, there’s
never been a more important time for us to focus in on this population and to
do that through a united front,” Lloyd Dean, CEO at CommonSpirit Health (formerly known as
Dignity Health), told Forbes.
The housing program at Kaiser Permanente and the Fresh Food
Farmacy at Geisinger are just two of the latest examples that healthcare
providers are increasingly focusing on population health. The fee-for-service model
of healthcare pays health systems, hospitals, and other providers, based on the
number of sick they treat. These new programs, however, move the entire
healthcare system toward keeping people from getting sick in the first place.
“I think there’s no doubt that we need to emphasize both
health needs and social service needs, and we should be thinking about these
collectively and not in silos,” Signe
Peterson Flieger, PhD, Assistant Professor of Public Health and Community
Medicine at Tufts University, told Forbes.
As progressive health networks such as Kaiser Permanente and
Geisinger move the traditional sites and types of medical care into new
settings and new directions, medical laboratory managers and personnel need to
stay alert for opportunities to support innovative, new health and wellness
programs in their communities.
Scientists
at St. Jude’s have discovered that performing different genetic tests on pediatric
cancer patients, and then combining those test results, may help guide and
improve patient care.
The research was part of a St. Jude’s project called Genomes
for Kids (G4K), a study to determine how genetic information may be used to
diagnose and treat pediatric cancers.
Through this project, the researchers hope to learn why tumors form in
children and predict how tumors will respond to certain treatments.
‘It’s
a Whole Lot of Sequencing.’
Few tragedies are worse than cancer in children. This is where precision medicine treatments can be critical, and multiomics may play an important role in the development of new therapies.
Multiomics refers to a biological analysis approach in which
multiple “omes” are analyzed together in a collaborative way to locate relevant
biomarkers and functional relationships. These “omes” include:
To perform their research, the St. Jude scientists examined
253 pediatric cancer patients by conducting whole genome
sequencing (WGS), whole
exome sequencing (WES), and RNA
sequencing of their tumors. They also looked at the WGS and WES of
non-cancerous tissues extracted from the same cancer patients.
“It is a whole lot of sequencing. I admit that,” Scott Newman, PhD,
Group Lead, Bioinformatics Analysis at St. Jude’s, told The
Scientist.
“With results available in a clinically relevant time frame, and pricing becoming increasingly comparable to the radiology and pathology tests, WGS is becoming more accessible to pediatric oncology patients,” said Scott Newman, PhD (above), Group Lead, Bioinformatics Analysis, at St. Jude’s, in an American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) news release. (Photo copyright: ASHG.)
As a result of their three-platform testing, the researchers
discovered there was at least one finding for each patient that could be useful
in providing a diagnosis, revealing risks for individual patients, or
pinpointing which drugs may be most beneficial for a particular patient in
nearly 200 (79%) of the cases. Such findings are at the heart of precision
medicine.
The researchers also compared their sequencing results to
cancer panels that use next-generation
sequencing (NGS) to target specific genes or mutations relevant to a
certain cancer phenotype.
During this portion of the research, they discovered that the cancer panels
missed 11% to 16% of actionable genes relating to diagnosis, prognosis, and
treatment.
“This is either good news or bad news, depending on how you
look at it,” Newman said. “Personally, I am amazed at how well these panels do
and how well they have been designed. But, if you want to know every mutation
that you would probably want to report, you have to do comprehensive
sequencing.”
First Multi-Platform Genomic Sequencing Study
“To
our knowledge, this is the first clinical study where this comprehensive three-platform
genomic sequencing approach was offered prospectively to all pediatric oncology
patients,” said Kim Nichols, MD,
Director, Division of Cancer Predisposition at St. Jude’s, in a St.
Jude’s blog post.
The testing costs $8,600 per patient, but is considered worth
it to improve patient diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment for pediatric cancer
patients.
“Compared with the cost of many
other procedures that children with cancer undergo, the cost is likely
comparable, or even less—for example, compared with complex surgical procedures
or multiple radiology tests,” Nichols said.
In addition, the test results are available in less than 30
days, which makes them more valuable, as time can be a critical asset to cancer
management.
The scientists hope this type of three-platform genetic
testing can help guide care for pediatric cancer patients.
“Because
so few of the molecular lesions in pediatric cancer are targetable by specific
drugs, currently it is the diagnostic and prognostic insights provided by the
three-platform approach that appear most clinically impactful,” said Nichols.
“From a diagnostic perspective, tumors may look the same under a microscope,
but the identification of specific genetic changes can direct you to the correct
diagnosis, and therefore, the most appropriate therapy. From a prognostic
perspective, you will have different risk stratifications depending on results.”
The results of the research were presented at the 2018
annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics in San Diego last
October. The St. Jude’s researchers hope that this type of research can drive
wider adoption of WGS in the assessment of pediatric tumors to improve patient
outcomes. Pathologists and medical laboratory scientists will want to watch for
additional research findings as the team at St. Jude’s uses this approach on
more pediatric cancer patients.
Vermont-based clinical laboratory company integrates social determinants of health (SDH) with lab data to help doctors at University of Vermont Health Network better manage their opioid patients
“We are thrilled to be recognized for our work serving the unique
needs of substance use healthcare. And, most importantly, across our
organization for our unyielding commitment to employing innovations to solve
this [opioid] crisis,” Aspenti Health CEO
Chris Powell stated in the news release.
The projects were judged on Clinical Lab 2.0 attributes,
such as:
Risk stratification by population;
Closure of care gaps;
Lab results as early detection; and
Lab intervention for improved clinical outcomes.
“This project, as well as all of the other cases that were
presented, were quite strong and all were aligned with the mission of the
Clinical Lab 2.0 Movement,” said Khosrow
R. Shotorbani, President, Executive Director, Project Santa Fe Foundation,
in a news
release. “This movement transforms the analytic results from a laboratory
into actionable intelligence at the patient visit in partnership with
front-liners and clinicians—allowing for identification of patient risks—and
arming providers with insights to guide therapeutic interventions.
“Further, it reduces the administrative burden on providers
by collecting SDH [social determinants
of health] predictors in advance and tying them to outcomes of interest,”
continued Shotorbani. “By bringing SDH predictors to the office visit, it
enables providers to engage in SDH without relying on their own data collection—a
current care gap in many practices. The lab becomes a catalyst helping to
manage the population we serve.”
Co-Use of Opioids Tied to Social Factors
Aspenti Health’s “Shark Tank” entry—“Integration of the
Clinical Laboratory and Social Determinants of Health in the Management of
Substance Use”—focused on the social factors tied to the co-use of opioids and benzodiazepines, a
combination that puts patients at higher risk of drug-related overdose or death.
The project revealed the top two predictors of co-use were the:
Prescribing provider practice, and the
Patient’s age.
“This was a unique project because it integrated social determinants, which are a key part of our overall health and wellness, with laboratory data, which is well-defined, quantitative, and very accurate,” said Jill Warrington, MD, PhD (above), Chief Medical Officer at Aspenti Health and Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine University of Vermont Medical Center, in an exclusive interview with Dark Daily. “So, combining something that is really meaningful clinically with something that is very predictive and accurate has a nice blend of strengths.” (Photo copyright: Aspenti Health.)
Myra L.
Wilkerson, MD, who served on a three-judge panel tasked with selecting the
winning project, said the Vermont toxicology laboratory’s entry stood out in
two key areas.
“We felt their project had an application to a broader
population, but also moved beyond traditional [laboratory] functions or even
medicine,” explains Wilkerson, who is Chair of the Diagnostic
Medicine Institute for the Geisinger
Health System. “Patient advocacy groups, payers, and providers all have
come to realize you can identify a disease, you can provide a treatment, but so
many other things impact it, especially in this community. When it is an
addiction, there are so many other factors that play into whether or not they
are going to be successful in their treatment plan. And a lot of them are
social things.”
Educating Care Givers and Public on Dangers of Co-Use
Drug Addictions
Working in collaboration with Staple Health and the University of Vermont Health
Network, Aspenti selected “co-use” for this initial lab outcome study because
of the significant patient safety implications and relative simplicity of its
definition—the co-presence of positive laboratory results for both opioids and
benzodiazepines.
According to the National
Institute on Drug Abuse, more than 30% of overdoses involving opioids also
involve benzodiazepines. Aspenti’s “Shark Tank” presentation highlighted the
fact that co-use of the drugs accounts for nearly 2.5% of opioid-related
emergency department visits, costing the healthcare system an estimated $47.5
million per year.
Based on the study results, Aspenti Health plans to develop
educational programs that warn about the dangers of co-using opioids and
benzodiazepines.
“We identified geographically hotspots where co-use was more
prevalent, so we can target our educational initiatives centered on those
geographical locations—not just to providers, but also to families and patients—to
raise awareness about co-use so the risks are mitigated collectively,” Warrington
said.
Advancing the Value-based Healthcare Agenda
The Executive War College Clinical Lab 2.0 “Shark Tank”
advances a conversation about the lab industry’s future that began at the
inaugural 2016
Project Santa Fe meeting. Lab industry stakeholders brainstormed about the
transition from volume-based to value-based healthcare, and the role
laboratory-driven innovations could play in reducing total cost of care.
As healthcare shifts to a value-based reimbursement model,
Wilkerson believes laboratory leaders must re-engineer their role in the
continuum of care by creating meaningful clinical diagnostic insights for population health
initiatives.
“What’s your executive leadership concerned about? What are
your payers concerned about? What are your accrediting or regulatory bodies
concerned about? What are their top priorities and how can you do something
that improves patient care but helps them address their problems as well?” she asks.
“That’s where you create value.”
As the Clinical Lab 2.0 Innovation Award winner, Aspenti Health
will receive:
An invitation to speak at national lab
conferences this fall;
A consultation with a Project Santa Fe member lab
to discuss successful Clinical Lab 2.0 innovations and identify new ways to
deliver more value in patient care; and
Publication of a case study of their Clinical
Lab 2.0 project by Dark Daily or its sister publication The Dark
Report.
With labs in Vermont and Massachusetts, Aspenti continues to
identify opportunities for directly contributing to improvements in the care of
substance abuse and pain management patients. Warrington says that with its SDH
project, Aspenti plans to focus on other key laboratory outcome measures—such
as treatment adherence and relapse. Next steps include integrating this work
into the practices of partner doctors within the University of Vermont Health
Network.
Wilkerson’s advice to other clinical laboratories is to
follow Aspenti Health’s lead.
“When you look at the national trends, the percentage of
traditional fee-for-service or volume-based healthcare is going to go down to
25% of the total healthcare spend by 2021,” she points out. “The other 75% will
be based on value-added services around quality metrics, efficiency, cost
reduction, utilization, etc. Labs that aren’t starting to think this way now
are going to be behind and at risk in the future.”
These “off-target” genetic alterations demonstrate that certain CRISPR base editors need further refinement in a research finding of interest to pathologists
Could CRISPR
DNA-editing technology unintentionally effect RNA as well? A new study conducted
at Massachusetts General Hospital
(MGH) suggests that it can. Clinical
laboratories doing genetic testing will want to understand why this
research implies that refinements to CRISPR may be needed for it to be accurate
in therapeutic applications.
For years, a huge value of CRISPR (Clustered Regularly
Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) base editors have been their ability to
edit genes or convert a specific DNA base without breaking the DNA. Now, the MGH
scientists have discovered that certain CRISPR base editors may extend beyond
the targeted DNA and perform unwanted edits to RNA, according to a news release.
“Most investigation of off-target base editing has focused
on DNA, but we have found that this technology can induce large numbers of RNA
alterations as well. This surprising finding suggests the need to look at more
than just genetic alterations when considering unintended off-target effects of
base editors in cells,” J. Keith Joung, MD,
PhD, MGH Pathologist and Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, stated in the news release.
The MGH scientists published their study in Nature.
How the MGH Researchers
Found Off-Target Effects on RNA
The researchers had set their sights on developing a base
editor that targets cytosine,
according to the study.
“Previous studies of cytosine base editor specifically have
identified off-target DNA edits in human cells. Here, we show that a cytosine
base editor with rat APOBEC1
[rAPOBEC1] enzyme can cause extensive transcriptome-wide RNA
cytosine deamination in
human cells,” the scientists wrote in Nature.
According to the news
release, when the researchers put base editors into human liver and kidney cells,
they found their technology induced efficient edits at the target DNA site.
However, they also discovered tens of thousands of cytosine-to-uracil edits in the cells. They
found that deaminases, an enzyme that acts as a catalyst, which they used in
their base editor to change DNA, also altered the RNA in the cells, Science reported.
“Base editors are still incredibly powerful tools. This is just another parameter we need to understand,” J. Keith Joung, MD, PhD (above), MGH Pathologist and Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, told Science. (Photo copyright: Massachusetts General Hospital.)
The researchers developed a way to reduce the unwanted RNA
edits, while maintaining the targeted DNA effects. They came up with cytosine
base editor variants, which they dubbed SElective Curbing of Unwanted RNA
Editing (SECURE).
“We engineered two cytosine base editor variants bearing
rAPOBEC1 mutations that substantially decreased the number of RNA edits in
human cells,” the researchers wrote in their study.
However, they also
called for changes to how base editors are used. “For research applications,
scientists using base editors will need to account for potential RNA off-target
effects in their experiments,” the MGH news release notes. “For therapeutic
applications, our results further argue for limiting the duration of base-editor
expression to the shortest length of time possible and the importance of
minimizing and accounting for potential impacts of these effects in safety
assessments.”
Other Studies Explore CRISPR
Other studies published earlier this year on mice and on rice also suggested
that “modified CRISPR-Cas9 technology will need to be further refined before it
can safely be used for research and therapeutic applications,” The Scientist reported.
Clinical laboratory leaders and pathologists recognize
CRISPR technology is changing the way research is done for diagnosing disease
as well as guiding treatment. Dark Daily has reported on key
CRISPR developments over many years.
And now, though the MGH study may appear to be a set-back
for CRISPR, it also may propel further research into possible therapeutic
applications of CRISPR base editing. It’s a development worth watching.
