Two of the most bandied-around concepts in healthcare are those of privacy and confidentiality. Even before HIPAA mandated measures to ensure that health information besafeguarded, medical professionals felt ethically bound not to disclose medical information to those who were not authorized or had a distinct ''need to know.'' The ...

One of the advantages to being a laboratory professional is having a quality improvement mindset. While the rest of healthcare struggles with run charts, process mapping, and action plans, we live it. Our profession is uniquely data driven. It’s one of the big reasons no one knows what we do; unless you understand data, you won’t get ...

Finish the sentence: Disney World is -. Even if you’ve never been to Disney, you likely have several words in mind: clean, fun, exciting. This marketing trick of associating an idea with a product or service is called branding. As one online definition puts it, “Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the ...

  The debate about the serpentine, complicated Affordable Care Act (so called Obamacare) continues. Aspects of the bill phase in over time, we know. It is also commonly accepted that many more individuals will be insurable and insured; creating a greater potential pool of consumers of medical laboratory tests. Most people will continue ...

  ''Marketing is everything,'' a friend of mine is fond of declaring with a tone of finality. Recently when I pressed forproof of such a definitive statement, he pointed to the last Presidential elections. The terms ''non-American socialist''  and ''out of touch rich guy'' came to represent the two candidates to such a degree that after ...

These days it’s difficult to imagine doing what we do without computers. Laboratory instruments are controlled by computers and data managers, connected to information systems using HL7 interfaces with or without middleware, and the resulting formats are a mix of values from the analyzer, calculated, and user entry. Report distribution occurs ...

The AACC is urging laboratory professionals to contact their members of Congress and request that they support H.R.1248, the Newborn Screening Saves Lives Reauthorization Act, which would preserve recent advances in state newborn screening programs. Earlier legislation contributed to a dramatic expansion in newborn screening for treatable ...

ADVANCE Discourse: Lab Knowing Let’s forget about money for a second. I know that can be difficult – what, with all of those pesky adult responsibilities and everything, but bare with me.  If money wasn’t an object, and your physician wanted to order a test that you knew wouldn’t be covered under your insurance, would you get ...

My friend Martha is 60 years old. She had been with her company for years in various roles from manager to director and finally COO. This past year she had some challenges related to her health, her mom died and she got divorced after almost 40 years of marriage. She was coasting towards retirement and looking forward to being able to travel and ...

Pardon the pun, but it’s an old story. According to the Hospital Council of Northern & Central California, “The average age of a CLS in California is above 50. There are not enough new CLSs in the pipeline to equal the numbers currently working but planning to retire,” which says it all. We are all getting older. Our laboratory has a pretty ...