CAP Foundation's Futurescape Coming Up Soon
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The CAP Foundation launched a conference called Futurescape of Pathology last June (see: CAP Foundation Futurescape Lectures Now Available). It served to fill a critical niche in the world of PLM (pathology and lab medicine) continuing education -- a forward-looking view about how these disciplines will evolve in the future. The various lectures stimulated me to post a number of notes including the following: The Future of Medicine and, Therefore, of Pathology and Lab Medicine. I also posted a critique of the conference written by a pathology resident who attended on the basis of a travel award; see: CAP Futurescape Confer...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 16, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Anatomic Pathology Clinical Lab Industry News Laboratory Industry Trends Medical Education Pathology Resources
Web-based tumor reporting system from University of Rochester
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I first came across mention of this site at the USCAP meeting this past March.
Disclaimer from their site:
This tumor reporting system is only intended to be a tool to facilitate the reporting process. The users are expected to use their judgment as to the accuracy and adequacy of information presented here. The owner of this site or its affiliated entities shall not be held liable for any adverse results from use or misuse of the material in this tumor reporting system.
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 16, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Integration of Anatomic and Clinical Pathology
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Although I have posted a number of previous notes about the potential merger of pathology and lab medicine with radiology, I strongly believe that such a change must be preceded by a much tighter integration of clinical pathology (CP) and anatomic pathology (AP). Part of the value of the proposed merger for radiologists will be the ready availability of a total view of disease based on both molecular diagnostics and morphologic observations coming from the pathologists.
As I have noted before, one of the key practice models for this future direction for CP and AP will be the practice of hematopathology in which both the m...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 15, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Anatomic Pathology Imaging Other Than Pathology Laboratory Industry Trends Medical Research Surgical Pathology
Service-Oriented Architecture in Healthcare: The End of Hierarchy
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I have posted previous notes about the federated model in healthcare computing. Drs. Balis and Routbort recently lectured on the relevance of this model, closely linked to service-oriented architecture (SOA), at Lab InfoTech Summit 2008 (see: The Value of a Federated Architecture in Pathology: Test Order Entry;The Value of a Federated Architecture in Pathology: Test Result Reporting). For me, the most appealing aspect of this approach to healthcare computing is that it eliminates hierarchy among systems. Under the federated model in a hospital, each information system becomes a single-source-of-truth (SST). I recently enco...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 14, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Information Technology LIS Definitions and Strategy Medical Research Pathology Informatics
IT Helping Vets Get Back on Feet
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from www.eweek.com
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 14, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Once Again Mr. HIStalk Clears the Air
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Mr. HIStalk has responded to my blog note of yesterday (Alphabet Soup and the HIMSS Leadership). I had cited one of his recent notes pertaining to the HIMSS execs and challenged the readers of Lab Soft News to decode the alphabet soup following their names on the HIMSS web site. Here is his comment in its entirety (boldface emphasis mine):I'm sorry to say that I know all of them except two first hand:CAE: Certified Association ExecutiveSPHR: Senior Professional in Human ResourcesCISM: Certified Information Security ManagerFHIMSS: Fellow (HIMSS)CPHIMS: Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management SystemsP...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 13, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Information Technology Hospitals and Healthcare Delivery Medical Education
Alphabet Soup and the HIMSS Leadership
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Mr. HIStalk calls our attention to the fact that the HIMSS organization has a CIO:Did I maybe just forget that HIMSS has a CIO? Says it does here.Very interesting. If you link to this list of HIMSS executive contacts, you will also can't help but be impressed by the number of executives attached to the organization (lots of mouths to feed), the creativeness of some of the titles (e.g, Sr. Director, Information Technology; Sr. Director, Business Information Systems; Vice President, Informatics; Vice President, Healthcare Information Systems), but, most of all, the alphabet soup following their names. Here's of list of what ...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 12, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Information Technology Hospitals and Healthcare Delivery
CMS launches PHR pilot for Medicare beneficiaries
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By Richard Pizzi, Associate Editor 05/07/08 Healthcare IT News
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services this week announced a new pilot project that encourages traditional Medicare beneficiaries to use an online Personal Health Record to track their healthcare services and better communicate with their providers.
The CMS pilot - which will take place in South Carolina - gives Medicare beneficiaries the ability to collect and access information about their health or healthcare services, such as medical conditions, hospitalizations, doctor visits and medications.
CMS claims that strict privacy ...
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 12, 2008 Authors: Kaps
The demand for lab scientists growing
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03/10/2008
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 12, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Animated DNA
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This is an incredibly cool animation of the central dogma of molecular biology. It was made by an very talented BAFTA- and Emmy-award winning medical illustrator named Drew Berry at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne.
Source: pathtalk.org - May 11, 2008 Authors: Kenneth Youens Tags: General Off the stage education molecular movie
Altered Cytoplasmic-to-Nuclear Ratio of Survivin Is a Prognostic Indicator in Breast Cancer
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Clinical Cancer Research 14, 2681-2689, May 1, 2008. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-07-1760
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 11, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Kodak Posts $114M Loss
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ROCHESTER, N.Y., May 1, 2008 -- Eastman Kodak Co. today reported a first-quarter loss of $114 million, or 40 cents a share, on sales of $2.09 billion. Total sales were up slightly -- one percent -- from the first quarter of 2007, and losses improved from the $175 million, or 61 cents a share, posted one year ago.
Kodak said its digital revenue was up 10 percent to $1.36 billion, while its traditional film-based revenues continued to decline, down 13 percent to $724 million, compared to $830 million a year ago. The company has posted profits in four of the last six quarters as it continues to make the transition from film...
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 10, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Completing Healthcare Transactions at the Point-of-Service
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Scott Shreeve in his Crossover Health blog raises the interesting issue of the need to complete healthcare transactions at the point-of-service (see: Millenial Patients: Care Delivery for the Next Generation of Patients). This goes to the question of how to modify healthcare transactions so that they more closely resemble the level of service offered in most other more consumer-oriented businesses. Here's an excerpt from his blog note with boldface emphasis mine:
In addition to getting comfortable discussing pricing, providers will need to be able to complete healthcare transactions at the point of service. As more consum...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 9, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Solutions Other than Lab Hospitals and Healthcare Delivery Medical Consumerism
First Diagnostic Test for Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s Disease Available Late 2008
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Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 9, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Pathologists’ victory in fair compensation lawsuit to stand
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The latest development in a lengthy legal battle concerning fair compensation for physicians is good news for pathologists—and marks another victory for the Litigation Center of the AMA and state medical societies.
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 9, 2008 Authors: Kaps
AMD Telemedicine Explores the Role of Telemedicine During Disasters
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Noted Emergency Physician Richard Aghababian, MD, Discusses the Benefits of Telemedicine Use at Disaster Scenes.
N. Chelmsford, MA (PRWEB) April 23, 2008 -- Executives at AMD Telemedicine, the leader in telemedicine hardware and software solutions with over 5,000 installations in more than 72 countries, today announced that a discussion on the value of telemedicine during a disaster with noted emergency medicine physician, Richard Aghababian, MD, was now available on the AMD web site.
Unlike day to day (emergent) operations in which a whole team works together to save one life, in disaster medicine, there can be many m...
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 9, 2008 Authors: Kaps
An Update on the Kaiser HealthConnect Project
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Veteran readers of Lab Soft News may remember a flurry of activity in the November-December, 2006, time period regarding the Kaiser HealthConnect project (see: Kaiser & Epic Respond to Justen Deal's E-Criticism; Is Kaiser Hijacking the Blogosphere?). Much of the controversy related to a young Kaiser employee name Justen Deal who surfaced as an IT whistle-blower and blogged about the total cost of the HealthConnect project, the periodic unplanned and prolonged computer downs, and the rather slow roll-out of the inpatient Epic software to hospitals in the Kaiser chain.
Mr. HIStalk provides us with the following update o...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 8, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Electronic Medical Record Healthcare Business Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Solutions Other than Lab Hospitals and Healthcare Delivery
Patients get an instant result
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By Emma Wilkinson
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 8, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Talking Up A New Role For Cell Phones In Telemedicine
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ScienceDaily (May 6, 2008) — After launching a communications revolution, cell phones are talking up a potentially life-saving new role in telemedicine -- the use of telecommunications technology to provide medical diagnosis and patient care when doctors and patients are hundreds or thousands of miles apart.
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 8, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Big Pharma Reacts to Its Drug Pipeline Problems
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I have posted previous notes about the challenges facing Big Pharma in terms of the lack of potential blockbuster drugs in the development pipeline (see: Number of Global Drug Projects by Phase). David Williams has a posted a very interesting note in his Health Business Blog about how the pharmaceutical industry is reacting, or might react, to this problem (see: How big pharma might use manufacturing as a strategic marketing tool). Below is an excerpt from his note with boldface emphasis mine:
As pipelines dried up and the generic industry became more sophisticated and aggressive, big pharma adjusted its tactics...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 7, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Medical Consumerism Pharmaceutical Industry
Using Virtual Telepathology to Train Pathology Residents
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Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 7, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Performing Procedures Can Be Lucrative for Physicians
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The Wall Street Journal has just run an excellent piece (see: Medical Specialties Hit by a Growing Pay Gap) about how some highly trained medical specialists like neuro-ophthalmologists end up at the lower end of the pay scale because they don't perform procedures. Here's the "money" quote from the article about why procedures tend to be reimbursed by payors at a high level as compared to, say, physician time and expertise. Blame it on Medicare and the federal government (boldface emphasis mine):But in the early 1990s, Medicare implemented a new system to set standard fees for physicians' services and procedures....
Source: Lab Soft News - May 6, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Solutions Other than Lab Hospitals and Healthcare Delivery
Problems facing pathologists common: national doctors college; Problems are also being investigated in Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick
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No hospital is immune to the deficiencies that have contributed to problems with medical testing in several provinces that have affected thousands of patients, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada said Thursday.
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 6, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Cost-Utility Analysis of Telemedicine and Ophthalmoscopy for Retinopathy of Prematurity Management
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Conclusions Telemedicine is more cost-effective than standard ophthalmoscopy for ROP management. Both strategies are highly cost-effective compared with other health care interventions.
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 6, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Status and Challenges of Offshore Clinical Trials
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I have posted a number of previous notes about the globalization of clinical trials and the contract research organizations (CROs) that provide lab support for such trials such as Covance and Charles River. Clinical trials are an important market for the clinical lab industry. A recent article about the globalization of clinical trials (see: MIT Study Quantifies Globalization Trends) provides some additional insights into this trend. I provide an excerpt from it below with boldface emphasis mine:Outsourcing of biopharmaceutical clinical trials to China and India is growing at a substantial rate, but in real terms the much-...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 5, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Laboratory Industry Trends Medical Research Pharmaceutical Industry Reference Laboratories
Arizona Breastnet Completes One Year of Digital Mammography
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Arizona Breastnet, a full service breast diagnostic center located in Scottsdale, specializing in breast mammography and breast ultrasound, announces the completion of one full year of providing digital mammograms to their patients in the Valley.
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 5, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Gigapixel Image
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A Pixel (short for picture element) is a single point in a graphic image. We know about Megapixel as we got digital cameras greater than 10 Megapixel. How about Gigapixel then ?
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 5, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Missouri bill may prohibit doctors from marking up some anatomical laboratory work
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Another state enters anti-markup fray:
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 5, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Hampshire network opts for telepathology solution
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Hampshire and Isle of Wight Cancer Network are to install a telepathology solution to improve the care of patients with cancer.
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 4, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Virtual On-Line Visits (VOVs) Support Physician/Patient Interactions
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I have published a number of previous notes about the efficiency of physician emails to patients, also referred to as on-line consultations and e-consultations. Here is one example: Doctors Slow to Adopt Email with Patients. Here's another note about the relevance of e-consultations for PCPs: More on Redefining the Role of the PCP. It turns out that a new term is also being used to describe physician interactions with patients: virtual on-line visits (VOVs). A recent article discussed this type of consultation (see: US doctors offer online consultations) and highlighted a web site, RelayHealth, that can be used to enable t...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 2, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Electronic Medical Record Healthcare Business Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Solutions Other than Lab Medical Consumerism
Pathology Informatics Links at URMC
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Pathology Informatics links at URMC website:
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 2, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Condom Manufacturer Promotes Safe-Sex Tour
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You can't make this stuff up. The Trojan Company, a major manufacturer of condoms, has gone on the road with a bus tour to promote safe sex (see: Rubber Hits the Road as Trojan Campaigns for Sexual Health in America). The press release announcing the tour makes interesting reading. Below is an excerpt from it with boldface emphasis mine:
...[T]he Trojan Evolve tour will travel across the U.S. raising awareness regarding the poor state of sexual health in America and urging Americans to petition for change. The fact is, this is not a sexually healthy nation, and the Evolve tour is designed to address this head on by in...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 1, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Solutions Other than Lab Hospitals and Healthcare Delivery Medical Consumerism
Internet Trends Presentation
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Internet Trends031808meeker
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - May 1, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Fantastic 1819 Anatomic Illustrations by Kyoto Physician Yasukazu Minagaki
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The Tohoku University Library in Japan provides an online display of the painfully-real Kaibo Zonshinzu anatomy scrolls created in 1819 by Kyoto-area physician Yasukazu Minagaki. The style of these medical drawings is markedly different than the more sanitized approach favored in Western countries (see: Kaibo Zonshinzu Anatomy Scrolls Online).
More details about the these Japanese anatomic drawings are supplied at the Pink Tentacle (see: Kaibo Zonshinzu anatomy scrolls (1819):Unlike European anatomical drawings of the time, which tended to depict the corpse as a living thing devoid of pain (and often in some sort of Greek...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 30, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Anatomic Pathology Medical Education Medical Research
India's foray into telemedicine faces difficulties
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Source: Digital Pathology Blog - April 30, 2008 Authors: Kaps
The Musculo-Skeletal System as an Emerging Specialty Focus,
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The New York Times on April 22, 2008, featured a full page advertisement for the Hospital for Special Surgery. The motto for the hospital, as seen in this ad, is "Specialists in Mobility." Also, according to the ad, the Hospital for Special Surgery is a "world leader in musculoskeletal research, linking laboratory science to state of the art clinical procedures." This caught my attention and caused me to think about the topic of specialized hospitals (see: Cardiology Morphs into Cardiovascular Medicine).
It's commonplace for various organ systems or patient categories to form the basis of a specialty ...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 29, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Solutions Other than Lab Hospitals and Healthcare Delivery Medical Research
Doors closed on cancer screenings
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Uma Bingham/My Word/The Times-Standard
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - April 29, 2008 Authors: Kaps
HIMSS President Slams PHRs: I Wonder Why?
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According to an interview in the WSJ Health Blog, Steve Leiber, the chief executive of HIMSS, is nervous about personal health records (PHRs) (see: How Personal Health Records Could Make Care Less Efficient). Here is an excerpt from the note (boldface emphasis mine):...Steve Leiber — who runs Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, the trade group for health IT — pointed out a potential downside to the patient-centric records. “Physicians aren’t going to trust it,” he said. That could be trouble if patients opt for the personal records and try (because of privacy concerns, say) to keep their medica...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 28, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Electronic Medical Record Healthcare Business Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Solutions Other than Lab Hospitals and Healthcare Delivery
Cancer fears as X-rays increase
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New Zealand's Medicare is investigating a sharp rise in digital imaging procedures such as X-rays and CT scans amid fears that some tests could be putting patients at risk of cancer.
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - April 28, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Recent news from American Medical Association
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Specialty hospitals measure rightly removed from farm bill
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - April 27, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Group predicts shortage in medical lab technicians
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Minnesota's NBC affiliate KARE-TV (4/24) reported that on Thursday, "local college and university medical instructors gathered with representatives from the Allina health system to let it be known [that] there is a shortage in lab technicians and it will soon be dire." The conference attendees attributed the impending decline to the fact that "many schools [are] not offering the program due to budget cuts in recent years, and, the decline in overall interest because it's in many ways a hidden field in healthcare." But "[l]ab professionals provide 70 to 80 percent of the objective data that physicia...
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - April 26, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Diseases and Behavioral Targeting: Some Limits on What the Web Remembers
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AOL’s Advertising.com and Google’s Doubleclick are responsible for placing advertising on other companies’ web sites. They, with other similar companies, belong to a trade organization called the Network Advertising Initiative. The group recently published its proposed guidelines to be adhered to by its members
when engaging in behavioral targeting. These companies keep track of the behavior of individuals when browsing the web in order to show them ads at some later time for products that they may want or need (see: Ad Industry Bans Targeting People With Cancer; Ads to Widows and Orphans Allowed). These guidelines m...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 25, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Blogosphere and Websphere Web and Browsers
eHealth and Telemedicine Associations of Germany, Austria and Switzerland Join Forces
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Source: Digital Pathology Blog - April 25, 2008 Authors: Kaps
MP3 Audio Files Now Available for Lab InfoTech Summit 2008
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If you click here, all of the audio files from Lab InfoTech Summit 2008 by individual lecture will populate the playlist of the MP3 player on your PC or Mac. You can also elect to save this file elsewhere. When you click on any of the lectures by name in your new playlist, it will provide the audio of the lecture in streaming mode. You can also simultaneously launch the relevant Power Point file (see: Lab InfoTech Summit 2008 PowerPoint Lectures) to replicate the live lecture. I will also provide a link beside each of these individual PowerPoint lectures so that the audio file can be saved individually.
Source: Lab Soft News - April 24, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Information Technology Laboratory Industry Trends Medical Education Pathology Informatics
Physician Reluctance to Invest in Their Office IT
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John of the Chillmark Research blog comments (see: Dis-information Among Those in the Know) on what he believes to be the incorrect perception that physicians are reluctant to invest in IT to support their office practices:[One example of disinformation is the] whining that physicians can not go digital because of costs. As I related in my notes from the first day [of the conference], this should be viewed as an investment in the business. Granted, there will not be an immediate ROI, but it will come in time, that I am sure of and ultimately, it will allow providers to participate in the future as more and more consu...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 24, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Electronic Medical Record Lab Information Products LIS Definitions and Strategy Pathology Informatics
Cleveland Clinic Becomes a Bedfellow with Google to Deliver Online Medical Records
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Reposted from Dark Daily. Follow up on previous post here.
Because healthcare is about to embark on a major digitization of paper records, lots of new corporate players are positioning themselves to profit from this activity. The latest surprise pairing is Cleveland Clinic and Internet giant Google . Both organizations jointly announced a new collaboration involving online health records that patients can maintain. Dark Daily previously reported that several online health record services, such as Microsoft Health Vault and Steve Case’s Revolution Health, have popped up with Web-based solutions that give pat...
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - April 24, 2008 Authors: Kaps
Some Additional Thougts About the Evolution of Lab Networks
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In a recent note (see: New Healthcare Delivery Models & Technologies That Will Affect the Clinical Labs), I raised the possibility of the evolution of lab networks in connection with my prediction that IT will become an increasing important competitive factor for national reference labs and hospital lab outreach programs. I want to provide some additional information here about what I mean by the term lab network.
There is a long history of reference labs and lab outreach programs providing basic connectivity to their client hospital labs. Such connectivity frequently consists of test ordering from the hospital lab an...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 23, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Lab Information Products Lab Processes and Procedures Laboratory Industry Trends
Learning and Telemedicine in Rural Communities
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Good news for rural communities - the United States Department of Agriculture has just announced that $128 million dollars will be available to improve medical care and education
Source: Digital Pathology Blog - April 23, 2008 Authors: Keith Kaplan
The Critical Pairing of PET/CT and a Radiopharmacy Network
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A recent article about the opening of PETNET's first molecular imaging biomarker production facility in Chennai, India, caught my attention for a couple of reasons (see: Siemens to launch PETNET services in India). Below is an excerpt from the article with boldface emphasis mine:Siemens...announced the launch of its project to set up [PETNET's] first
molecular imaging biomarker production facility in Chennai. The new
facility will enable the healthcare providers in and around Chennai to
access the PET.CT technology for diagnosis of patients with
life-threatening diseases ...PETNET
Solutions, a fully owned subsidiary of Sie...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 22, 2008 Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Solutions Other than Lab Imaging Other Than Pathology
ARUP LABORATORIES BOOSTS PRIZE MONEY FOR RESIDENT RESEARCH CONTEST
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Source: Digital Pathology Blog - April 22, 2008 Authors: Keith Kaplan
