Feb 25, 2013 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
‘National Agenda’ seeks to marshal efforts to sharpen the clinical impact of pathology in the genomics era
Pathologists are being urged to seize the high ground as the unfolding revolutions in genomics and bioinformatics create unprecedented capabilities to more accurately diagnose patients and guide the selection of appropriate therapies.
Two experts in these fields have come together to issue a call to action for the pathology profession, stating that pathologists need to be prepared for the sequencing revolution. “Revolution is not too strong a word; this is not incremental change,” declared Dennis P. Wall, Ph.D. and Peter J. Tonellato, Ph.D., in a recent story published in The Scientist. “The use of whole-genome analysis (WGA) can, should, and will replace many current standard pathology practices of diagnosis and prognosis on which proper therapy and disease management rely,” the co-authors asserted.
Wall is an associate professor and director of Computational Biology at Harvard Medical School (HMS). Tonellato is a professor and director of the Laboratory for Personalized Medicine at HMS. (more…)
Dec 17, 2012 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Pathologists are positioned to be the primary interpreters of big data as genomic medicine further evolves
Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers may be surprised to learn that at least one data scientist has proclaimed pathologists the real big data rock stars of healthcare. The reason has to do with the shift in focus of genomic medicine from therapeutics and presymptomatic disease assessment to big data analytics.
In a recent posting published at Forbes.com, data scientist Jim Golden heralded the pronouncement of Harvard pathologist Mark S. Boguski, M.D., Ph.D., FACM. He declared that “The time of the $1,000 genome meme is over!” (more…)
Nov 19, 2012 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Medical laboratory professionals will be surprised to learn that some experts claim American healthcare will not see a return on investment from use of EHR systems
It is the popular wisdom today that universal adoption of electronic health record (EHR) systems will lead to significant improvements in patient outcomes, while also delivering substantial cost savings to the American health system.
However, this trend also requires clinical laboratories to spend substantial amounts of money to provide electronic interfaces between their laboratory information systems (LIS) and EHR systems of their client physicians.
Until recently, very little criticism of these federal EHR subsidies has appeared in the media. However, some experts now assert that tens of billions of dollars hospitals and physicians are spending to implement EHRs and integrate their information systems will never be recouped by downstream savings. (more…)
Nov 5, 2012 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
New biomedical imaging technology could enhance pathologists’ ability to examine tissue samples via fluorescence microscopy
Scientists at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have developed a new DNA, barcoding technique. The fluorescence microscopy approach has significant implications for the imaging community.
Beyond imaging, however, pathologists will be able to use this same technology when evaluating tissue specimens.
The new method could enable simultaneous imaging of many different types of molecules in a single cell, according to Peng Yin, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School and Core Faculty Member at Wyss Institute. The developers expect the method to provide researchers with a richer, more accurate view of cell behavior than is possible using current techniques. (more…)
Sep 12, 2012 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Penalty program to reduce hospital inpatient readmissions could present an opportunity for pathologists and clinical laboratories
Remember the Medicare program that was designed to target hospital inpatient readmissions? The bill is coming due and Medicare penalties are soon to hit 2,211 of the nation’s hospitals. According to Kaiser Health News, as much as $280 million in penalties will be assessed against hospitals that did meet their goals.
The maximum penalty is 1% of a hospital’s base Medicare reimbursement. At least 278 hospitals will pay this maximum penalty, including some nationally-prominent institutions.
One consequence of these payment forfeitures is that hospital administration and physicians will be looking for ways to improve care and reduce the readmission rate for Medicare patients. In turn, it can be expected that clinicians will be motivated to pay closer attention to clinical laboratory test results in determining appropriate therapies and making discharge decisions. Utilization of medical laboratory tests may also improve as part of these overall efforts to improve patient outcomes and lower the rate of readmissions. (more…)
