TAG:
quality improvement
Labs Learn About ACOs And Medical Homes
IN JUST SEVEN MONTHS, the age of accountable care organizations (ACO) begins. On January 1, 2012, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will commence contracting with ACOs. ACOs are one of the major reforms spelled out in the 2,700-page health reform law that President Obama si…
Using Audits to Uncover Bad Data in the Lab
CEO SUMMARY: Labs using Lean, Six Sigma, and similar quality management methods are now putting these tools to a new purpose. They are being employed to validate the accuracy of metrics designed to monitor and manage work processes directly related to turnaround times and custome…
Pursuing More Benefits From Next Generation Lab Automation
CEO Summary: Once it was decided to replace an aging, five-year-old laboratory automation system at the laboratory of Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey, Illinois, the administration at the hospital issued a challenge. It asked the laboratory team to deliver an immediate 10% cos…
Quality Strategy Earns Honor for SD Laboratory
CEO SUMMARY: Here’s a new lab product launch with a surprise twist. Upon earning FDA clearance for its new HIV Ag/Ab Combo Assay this spring, Abbott Diagnostics selected a hospital laboratory in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to be the nation’s first clinical lab to offer the ass…
Patient Privacy Laws Create Legal Risk for Labs
CEO SUMMARY: Before the nation’s healthcare system can achieve the integrated universal EHR, it must fix the crazy contradictions in state and federal laws governing patient privacy. There is discordance between federal law and state law that defines the role and responsibility…
New Clinical Lab Trends To Shape Events in 2010
CEO SUMMARY: In presenting this list of macro trends for clinical laboratories, several themes are in play. They range from a continued emphasis on improving lab operations to the need to acquire and deploy sophisticated information technology. During the next few years, the long…
Auckland Health Boards Give DML Some Testing
CEO SUMMARY: Auckland’s chaotic lab testing situation just became more complicated. Today the Auckland District Health Boards announced a four-year contract to allow Diagnostic Medlab to perform 10% of the area’s test volume, primarily for private hospitals and private specialists. It…
Expert Says Time is Now For Labs to Adopt QMS
CEO SUMMARY: Laboratories in the United States are knowledgeable about the use of quality control (QC) and quality assurance (QA) programs. But QC and QA represent only two small parts of a comprehensive quality management system (QMS), says Lucia Berte, an expert in lab quality. One bene…
Using Lean at Henry Ford Transforms Pathology TAT
CEO SUMMARY: Long-standing work flow traditions in anatomic pathology provide fertile ground for improvement with Lean and similar process improvement methods. That was the case at Henry Ford Health System, where empowered teams in the pathology laboratory employed the principles…
Elevating Lab Testing At Policymaking Table
CEO SUMMARY: With the help of contributing clinical laboratories, the CDC has launched an ambitious effort to gather data, apply evidence review methods used in clinical studies, then identify and publish best practices in laboratory medicine. The goal is to advance the value of …
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXII, No. 6 – April 21, 2025
Now that a federal judge has vacated the FDA’s LDT rule, The Dark Report analyzes the judgement and notes the various steps the FDA could take in response. Also, lab testing at pharmacies is proving to be less successful than was once anticipated.
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