News sources are reporting a rumor that President Barack Obama intends to appoint Donald Berwick, M.D., as Director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Berwick is currently Director of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston, Massachusetts. He has been outspoken about the need for healthcare to devote more effort to improving quality. CMS has not had a permanent director since the departure of Mark McClellan, M.D., in 2006.
JUAN ROSAI, MD’S CASES TO BE PUT IN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
It’s another milestone on the road to full adoption of digital pathology. On March 22, the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathologists (USCAP) and Aperio Technologies, Inc., announced a partnership that will “digitize, archive, and make publicly available online, at no cost to the pathology community, the Dr. Juan Rosai Collection of Surgical Pathology Seminars.” This comprehensive collection consists of about 20,000 cases. The archive will include digital images of the original slides, along with clinical history and the diagnostic summary. Also included will be “present day commentary by Rosai and other experts.” Both Aperio and USCAP will make the digital information available through their respective web sites. The goal is to complete the archiving by early 2011.
ADD To: ROSAI
This partnership is an early example of how the combination of digital pathology technology and the Internet will change pathology education. In this case, once USCAP and Aperio finish with archiving Dr. Rosai’s collection, it will be possible for any pathologist anywhere in the world to use the Internet and access these cases. That allows anyone to learn from Dr. Rosai on a 24/7 basis. Going forward, entrepreneurial schools of medicine are likely to engage world-class pathologists and create similar learning and lecture modules in their particular subspecialty of laboratory medicine. In turn, that makes it easy for any medical student to access and learn from the lectures of the world’s foremost pathologists.
PHLEBOTOMIST GETS LUCKY, WINS $111,250
One lucky phlebotomist from Camas, Washington, became this season’s first $100,000 winner on television’s Wheel of Fortune game show. In a show aired in March, Barry Williams, who works at a family practice clinic, won a total of $111,250 after solving the $100,000 round puzzle.
Dark Daily Update
Have you caught the latest e-briefings from DARK Daily? If so, then you’d know about…
…the new requirements of the HITECH ACT that laboratories must follow when a breach of protected health information (PHI) occurs. This can include notifying media of the lab’s PHI breach.
You can get the free DARK Daily e-briefings by signing up at www.darkdaily.com.
