A lot to like about laboratory-provider links software
April 2014—It’s not a race, but you gotta keep pace or risk losing face (and customers and revenue). While this rhyme isn’t an axiom, for vendors of laboratory-provider linking software, it might as...
View ArticleFrom the President’s Desk: Member survey meets our need to know, 4/14
April 2014—Soon CAP members will receive the online Practice Characteristics Survey, designed to provide evidence of the value we contribute to health care and the many ways we serve our patients. This...
View ArticleTuning in to hypotensive transfusion reactions
April 2014—Most pathologists are trained to think of hypotensive transfusion reactions as rare events, and for the most part they are. But one pathologist’s experience suggests these reactions may be...
View ArticleIn encephalitis case, next-gen sequencing is the star
April 2014—In what may be a first for the burgeoning field of next-generation sequencing, this powerful new technology was used to identify the cause of encephalitis in a teenage boy who had been...
View ArticleCan an old drug be taught new pharmacogenetic tricks?
April 2014—Despite warfarin’s continued presence near the top of the FDA’s list of adverse drug events and the availability of competing agents, the drug continues to be a mainstay of anticoagulant...
View ArticleMicrobiology automation: finding the right mix
April 2014—Talk to a few microbiology laboratories about why they feel the need to automate and you hear common themes: people, space, quality, and, most of all, time to detection. Microbiology may be...
View ArticleHPV primary screening for cervical cancer—an interview with Ritu Nayar, MD
April 2014—Dr. Nayar, professor of pathology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, is co-chair of the Cytopathology Education and Technology Consortium, president of the...
View ArticlePens, pencils, Post-its—setting out to save on supplies
April 2014—The Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology is one of the largest departments at Mayo Clinic, with approximately 3,250 employees who work in 61 specialty labs at seven locations...
View ArticleHow POC testing is pushing the envelope
April 2014—It can be hard to remember a time when GPS was not available in cars, the Web didn’t exist, and only eight diagnostic tests were classified as waived and able to be performed at the point of...
View ArticleTaking aim at overuse: daily labs, high-cost send-outs
April 2014—As reimbursement models change, achieving better test utilization will become a survival strategy. And in the hard work to improve test use, the computerized physician order-entry system...
View ArticlePut It on the Board
April 2014—Clinical trial data and a Food and Drug Administration panel’s full-throated endorsement stand to reshape cervical cancer screening practice recommendations in the U.S. The FDA’s...
View ArticleLetters, 4/14
April 2014—HER2 testing guideline update: Karen Titus’ article “New guideline takes on tough HER2 cases” (October 2013) nicely captures the deliberations behind the new HER2 testing guideline, issued...
View ArticleAnatomic Pathology Selected Abstracts, 5/14
May 2014—Impact of operator techniques and specimen-preparation checklist on bone marrow assessment: Successful bone marrow assessment is essential to the diagnosis and staging of hematologic...
View ArticleClinical Pathology Selected Abstracts, 5/14
May 2014—Real-time clinical decision support systems for platelet and cryoprecipitate orders: Platelet and cryoprecipitate transfusions are often used to treat patients who are bleeding. However, many...
View ArticleNewsbytes, 5/14
May 2014—How to avoid becoming a ‘legacy system junkyard: The constant churn of information technology applications is creating new security and financial risks that health care organizations—including...
View ArticleQ & A Column, 5/14
May 2014—Checklist requirement HEM.23050 regarding reference intervals includes a note that if absolute cell counts are reported with their reference ranges, then percent cell count reference ranges...
View ArticlePut It on the Board, 5/14
May 2014—FDA clears FilmArray GI Panel: BioMérieux affiliate BioFire received Food and Drug Administration 510(k) clearance for the FilmArray Gastrointestinal Panel. The 22-target panel allows a...
View ArticleCytopathology and More | FNA cytology: Rapid on-site evaluation—how practice...
May 2014—Rapid on-site evaluation, or ROSE, is a service that pathologists and cytotechnologists commonly perform to check the cellular content and adequacy of fine-needle aspiration smears and biopsy...
View ArticleMolecular assays in HIV-1 Dx and therapeutic monitoring
May 2014—CAP TODAY and the Association for Molecular Pathology have teamed up to bring molecular case reports to CAP TODAY readers. Here, this month, is the fourth such case. (See the February, August,...
View ArticleUnraveling metastasis with circulating tumor cells
May 2014—Some diseases have clear origins and unfold in predictable ways, but cancer isn’t one of them. Despite legions of studies over the decades, cancer tumorigenesis and its deadly sequel,...
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