Month: December 2008

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

Last Thursday, Sunquest Information Systems, Inc. of Tucson, Arizona, announced that it would purchase the ā€œOutreach Advantage Solutionā€ 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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Quest Discusses Use of Mass Spec Methodology

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

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

CEO SUMMARY: In recent months, Quest Diagnostics Incorporated quietly launched a campaign to notify certain patients and their physicians that they had received ā€œinaccurate resultsā€ 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

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

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

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

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

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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