Jun 25, 2014 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Uncategorized
Maricopa Integrated Health System reports that price transparency pays off by reducing uncompensated care and increasing business
Arizona has a new law that requires hospitals, medical laboratories, diagnostic imaging facilities, ambulatory surgery centers, and urgent-care centers to publish the prices they charge self-pay and uninsured patients for the 50 most common inpatient and outpatient services. The law took effect on January 1, 2014.
News accounts report that just one hospital took steps to publish its prices earlier this year. Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers will find the experience of Maricopa Integrated Health System to be instructive, as hospital administrators there publicly state that this was the right thing to do for patients in their community. (more…)
Jun 23, 2014 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations, Uncategorized
Leadership and the medical laboratory team at this Indianapolis, Indiana-based specialty hospital implemented a clinical intelligence system delivered via the cloud
Does clinical use of a business intelligence (BI) system give hospitals and their clinical laboratories a way to add more value to physicians and contribute to improved outcomes? If you ask the clinical laboratory team and leadership at one specialty hospital in the Midwest, their answer is a resounding “yes!”
St. Vincent Seton Specialty Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana, was an early adopter of business intelligence at the time it acquired a clinical intelligence system in late 2012. Due to the acuity and patient length-of-stay at this hospital, leadership wanted to do something different and innovative that would contribute to measurable and significant improvement in patient outcomes. (more…)
Apr 11, 2014 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Uncategorized
Although most clinical laboratories and pathology groups do not use EHR systems, the OIG’s finding should alert them to possible problems with audit integrity of their clients’ EHRs
Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems were supposed to prevent fraud, but a recent report from one federal agency states that the fraud safeguards built into EHR systems are not in engaged by a majority of users.
Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers with the responsibility to maintain security of software systems used in their medical laboratories may be interested to read “Not All Recommended Fraud Safeguards Have Been Implemented in Hospital EHR Technology,” a report issued by the Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG). (more…)
Feb 17, 2014 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology, Uncategorized
Experts are excited about the swift development of wireless remote monitoring of patients; companies expected to develop sensors that incorporate a wide range of biomarkers
Some experts predict that the era of wireless, remote monitoring of patients is almost upon us. It will require pathologists and medical laboratory professionals to learn a new acronym: MBAN, which stands for medical body area network.
There is keen interest in remote wireless monitoring systems. The concept is to free patients from the hospital bed and allow continuous remote monitoring, regardless of where the patient is located. For this reason, in just a few years and in many local markets, opportunities are likely to be ripe for pathologists and clinical laboratory teams to have a role in managing wireless medical devices that use MBANs. (more…)
Dec 18, 2013 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Management & Operations, Uncategorized
Adoption of digital PCR is slow at this time, but pathologists may want to track how researchers use this technology in the new clinical laboratory assays they use
Molecular pathologists will be interested to learn that there is a new contender in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) arena. It is digital PCR, and it has specific advantages over traditional real-time PCR methods.
For example, digital PCR can target specific DNA sequences in just one molecule of DNA. This new tool allows researchers to isolate rare genetic mutations too difficult to segregate with real-time PCR, noted a report from Insight Pharma Reports. (more…)
Oct 9, 2013 | Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations, News From Dark Daily, Uncategorized
Because of successive decreases in budgets for clinical laboratory testing, many Canadian medical laboratories are engaging their staffs to innovate and introduce new value-added testing services
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA—Traditional operational and business models for clinical laboratory testing are under siege here in Canada, just as they are in other developed nations across the globe. That was one important trend identified by multiple speakers at Executive Edge 2013, that took place Monday and Tuesday of this week.
During Monday morning’s opening session, a common point of emphasis was that simply consolidating specimens into large medical laboratory facilities as a way to achieve economies of scale and lower the average cost per test is fast becoming obsolete. All pathologists and clinical laboratory managers understand why this is true: payers can lower reimbursement for lab tests faster than labs can cut the costs of performing those tests. (more…)
