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Month: December 2008

December 22, 2008 “Intelligence: Late Breaking Lab News”

Late Breaking Lab News / By Robert Michel

Last Thursday, Sunquest Information Systems, Inc. of Tucson, Arizona, announced that it would purchase the “Outreach Advantage Solution” software system developed by Pathology Associates Medical Laborator ies of Spokane, Washington. PAML has spent most of this decade developing a comprehensive, integrated software system designed specifically to give hospital laboratory outreach programs a full service capability …

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Retest Program Offers Useful Lessons for Labs

Clinical Laboratory / By Robert Michel

CEO SUMMARY: Every day in every laboratory, there is the potential for some aspect of the testing process to go wrong and not be immediately detected. In such circumstances, the lab can then unknowingly report inaccurate test results to physicians and patients. That is why lab managers should have a contingency plan in place that …

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Quest Discusses Use of Mass Spec Methodology

Clinical Laboratory / By Robert Michel

CEO SUMMARY: Having made the decision to perform nearly all Vitamin 25(OH) D testing by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS), Quest Diagnostics Incorporated found the transition to be challenging. That was particularly true as the volume of Vitamin D specimens tripled at the nation’s largest lab company during the period May 2006 to May 2008. …

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Patient Retest Effort Is Extraordinary Event

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / By R. Lewis Dark

IT IS NOT OFTEN THAT WE DEVOTE AN ENTIRE ISSUE TO A SINGLE TOPIC. The last single-topic special issue of THE DARK REPORT was almost exactly one year ago, when we provided the laboratory industry’s most detailed assessment of the Medicare Part B Competitive Bidding Demonstration Project, the details of which had finally been made …

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Vitamin D Test Issues Trigger Doctor Discussion

Clinical Laboratory / By Robert Michel

CEO SUMMARY: In recent months, Quest Diagnostics Incorporated quietly launched a campaign to notify certain patients and their physicians that they had received “inaccurate results” for Vitamin D tests it had performed. This notice includes an offer to retest the patient at no charge. There are several unprecedented dimensions to this story which have the …

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Doctor Notices Different Vitamin D Results over Time

Clinical Laboratory / By Robert Michel

CEO SUMMARY: Psychiatrist John J. Cannell, M.D., was in a unique position to see the noticeable upward shift in the Vitamin D results reported on his patients by Quest Diagnostics Incorporated over the past 24 months, along with the recent decline in test result levels in recent weeks. His Vitamin D Council and his newsletter, …

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Vitamin D Test Expert Discusses Mass Spec

Clinical Laboratory / By Robert Michel

CEO SUMMARY: Those labs performing Vitamin 25(OH) D testing by mass spectrometry face an interesting challenge. For more than two decades, physicians, patients, and a majority of credible clinical studies have accepted RIA and IA Vitamin 25(OH) D results as a familiar standard. That is why, to avoid confusing physicians, some labs using the mass …

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Quest Diagnostics Explains Confidence in LC-MS/MS Method

Clinical Laboratory / By Robert Michel

ONE ASPECT IN THE DEBATE about the integrity of Vitamin D tests produced by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC 0150MS/MS) is the discussion about how this method can produce results that are significantly higher than those produced by immunoassay-based methods. Quest Diagnostics addressed this point directly. In response to questions from THE DARK REPORT, Wael …

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2008’s Top Ten Lab Stories Lacked Disruptive Impact

Clinical Laboratory Trends / By Robert Michel

CEO SUMMARY: For the first time in recent memory, a year has passed without major tumult or disruptive change in the laboratory industry. Our list of the Top Ten Most Important Stories of 2008 reflects a rather quiet year when compared to most years of this decade. However, events continue to unfold in healthcare and …

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Multi-Modality Diagnosis Heading for Lab Medicine

Clinical Laboratory Trends / By Robert Michel

CEO Summary: At the upcoming Molecular Summit in Philadelphia on February 10-11, 2009, pathologists, molecular imaging experts, and informaticians will share the latest developments on the integration of in vivo (imaging) and in vitro (pathology) diagnostics. A major theme will be discussion about multi-modality diagnostics and how this new discipline—driven by advances in genetics and …

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