Quest Offering " Consumer-Initiated " COVID-19 Antibody Testing
We are still far from the development of an organized, rational lab testing strategy for COVID-19 sat the national level. Whatever plan that exists today is marked by a lack of federal coordination and divisive political messaging. This mix of confusion and contradictory messages continues with the two major for-profit national reference labs, Quest and LabCorp, now offering COVID-19 antibody testing directly to consumers (see:Quest's new service lets customers request COVID-19 antibody test). Below are the details:Quest Diagnostics announced that it will be offering a “consumer initiated” COVID-19 anti...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 5, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Diagnostics Epidemiology Lab Industry Trends Medical Consumerism Preventive Medicine Public Health Source Type: blogs
Walgreens' Find Care, a Digital Marketplace for Health Services
One of the few positive aspects of the Covid19 pandemic is that healthcare consumers are increasing turning to their digital devices for access to health services such as virtual visits with their personal physicians or filling prescriptions. I have been blogging about lab test ordering on the web, direct access testing (DAT), for about 15 years (see:Reinventing Direct Access Testing (DAT)) The die now seems to be cast regarding far greater engagement by consumers in digital health initiatives (see:What Is Digital Health and How Does a Health System Get There?).Walgreens, as part of this digital healthcare movement, is try...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 30, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Source Type: blogs
Will the Effects of COVID-19 Be Mitigated by the Warm Spring Weather?
One of the best articles I have come across lately regarding COVID-19 with a strong scientific orientation is: Why the Coronavirus Has Been So Successful. I have personally been wondering whether our upcoming warmer weather will ameliorate the effects of the pandemic as we have seen with our yearly influenza outbreaks. Here is the answer to this question extracted from this Atlantic article:Coronaviruses, much like influenza, tend to be winter viruses.In cold and dry air, the thin layers of liquid that coat our lungs and airways become even thinner, and the beating hairs that rest in those layers struggle to evict vi...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 20, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Epidemiology Source Type: blogs
Drive-Through Collection of Samples for COVID-19 Testing in Cleveland
The notion of drive-through to collect nasal swabs for COVID-19 testing is a practical and efficient idea and, I think, will ultimately be used across the country. Here's an article about how such a collection process is being organized by two Cleveland hospitals (see:University Hospitals and Cleveland Clinic Partner to Provide Drive-Through COVID-19 Testing). Below is an excerpt from the article:Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals (UH) have partnered to provide drive-through COVID-19 testing for patients with a doctor ’s order from UH or Cleveland Clinic....Patients without a doctor ’s order will not b...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 17, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Testing Cost of Healthcare Diagnostics Food and Drug Administration Healthcare Innovations Lab Industry Trends Lab Processes and Procedures Preventive Medicine Source Type: blogs
AI Platform to Assist Hospital Physicians in Lab Test Ordering
I have blogged extensively about the deployment of AI in healthcare (see, for example:CMS Offers $1M Reward for AI to Predict Unplanned Hospitalizations). I have learned that the simplest AI applications may sometimes have the largest beneficial effects (see:Medical Community Braces for Algorithm to Reduce Unnecessary Imaging Orders). That was my reaction when I read a recentDark Daily article (see:Florida Hospital Utilizes Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Platform to Reduce Clinical Variation in Its Healthcare...). Below is an excerpt from it:Variation in how individual physicians order, interpret, and act u...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 13, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: AI Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Diagnostics Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Information Technology Lab Processes and Procedures Medical Research Predictive Analytics Source Type: blogs
Some Details about an Emerging Healthcare Service -- Hospital-at-Home (HaH)
One of the new services in healthcare, hospital-at-home (HaH), has caught my attention. I encountered an article providing more details about one company in this business (see:In-Home Healthcare Companies Bring High-Acuity Care, Including Clinical Laboratory Testing, to Patients at their Homes and Workplaces). Below is an excerpt from it:Whatever name it is given, the high cost of keeping a patient overnight in a hospital is motivating a range of healthcare players to develop innovative ways to provide care to patients —even patients with acute conditions—in their home....One such company isDispatchHealth...which recen...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 11, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Testing Cost of Healthcare Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Source Type: blogs
An Attempt to Make EHRs More Physician Friendly with Virtual Assistants
It's recognized that EHRs are a major cause of physician burnout due to the demands on their time for dictating notes and documenting various types of patient interactions (see:Relationship Between Clerical Burden and Characteristics of the Electronic Environment With Physician Burnout and Professional Satisfaction). Solutions for this problem include hiring scribes to manage the keyboard work for a physician (see:Greater Adoption of the Scribe Model for EMR Data Input) and the deployment of AI-enabled virtual scribes (see:This AI Software Company Just Raised $20 Million To Help Prevent Physician Burnout;Why"Virtu...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 7, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Medical Research Quality of Care Source Type: blogs
Humana's Launches New Venture: Medicare-Centric Primary Care Clinics
Humana is expanding its primary care presence (see:Humana's Broussard calls latest primary care venture an'expensive, complicated deal'). Below is an excerpt from this article describing this new initiative:Humana's recently announced joint venture to launch senior-centric primary care clinics was far from easy or cheap....The clinics will be payer agnostic and operated by Humana ’s primary care subsidiary,Partners in Primary Care....[The company CEO] was addressing a question about the acquisition as well as Humana's deal to acquire home health care providerKindred at Home in 2018. It'...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 4, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Insurance Hospital Executive Management Population Health Public Health Source Type: blogs
Six Health Systems Suffer Financial Losses Following EHR Deployments
I have been blogging for at least seven years about the"numbing costs" of installing a new EHR (see:Who Says a Hospital CIO Can't Get Fired for Picking the Epic EHR?). These costs and sometimes subsequent financial losses are due to the enormous cost of installing such a system, inability to collect on accounts receivable during and even after the transition, and the decreased productivity of physicians and nurses using the new system after system go-live.There is an inevitable decrease in productivity following the deployment of any new technology because of the unfamiliarity of personal with it. Ideally, th...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 3, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Cost of Healthcare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Information Technology Hospital Executive Management Source Type: blogs
Mayo Clinic's Web Site Contains a " Find Diseases and Conditions " Feature
Searching for reliable web sites that discuss the diagnosis of diseases can be a hit-or-miss proposition. The process is sometimes jokingly referred to as"consulting Dr. Google" (see:The precautions you should take before consulting ‘Dr. Google’). Regarding the use of lab tests for diagnosis, one of the best resources that I know is the ARUP LaboratoriesTest Directory. One word of caution here is that it's primarily designed to guide physicians in test ordering.The trend of providing information on the web about diseases for consumers continues. One example is the Mayo Clinic web site (see:Find Dise...
Source: Lab Soft News - February 28, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Testing Diagnostics Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Medical Consumerism Public Health Source Type: blogs
Hospital Outpatient Visits Drop for First Time; Long History of Similar Inpatient Declines
It is well documented that hospital inpatient admissions have been declining for the past thirty years (see:The Case of the"Disappearing Hospital Beds"; Implications for Pathologists;Inpatient Admissions Decreasing; Implications for Hospital-Based Labs). Now comes news of a decline in outpatient visits (see:Outpatient Visits to Hospitals Decline Year-to-Year for First Time in 35 Years) Below is an excerpt from the article:Thanks to the popularity of urgent care clinics and other non-hospital-based ambulatory care providers, the year-over-year growth in the number of hospital outpatient visits has been on th...
Source: Lab Soft News - February 25, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Cost of Healthcare Health Wearable Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Innovations Medical Consumerism Quality of Care Telemedicine Source Type: blogs
Big Tech Initiatives in Healthcare Coming from Many Directions
I have posted a number of notes about the increasing role of Big Tech in healthcare. It's time to take a look at the big picture and helpful in this regard is a SWOT table that was included in a recent article about this topic (see:BIG TECH IN HEALTHCARE). It was compiled byBusiness Insider Intelligence and is presented below:After having reviewed the bulleted items in the four columns for Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, I was impressed by the breadth and complexity of the list. For me, all of this this distills into the following Big Tech initiatives in healthcare:Home monitoring with wearables ...
Source: Lab Soft News - February 21, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: AI Diagnostics Electronic Health Record (EHR) Health Wearable Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Medical Consumerism Predictive Analytics Preventive Medicine Source Type: blogs
Health System YouTube Videos Fulfill an Important Educational Function
My understanding of the legality and propriety of hospital"advertising" in social media was rather vague but an article on this topic cleared away the cobwebs (see:Hospital Advertising). Below is an excerpt from it. It turns out to be legal but later in the post I will discuss why I think it's beneficial for healthcare consumers.While advertising by doctors and hospitals has been legal for 30 years, until recently, professional taboos discouraged the practice. Increasing economic pressures and changing cultural norms have led, however, to the demise of these informal proscriptions, and advertisements pr...
Source: Lab Soft News - February 19, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Innovations Medical Consumerism Quality of Care Social Media Source Type: blogs
Analysis of the Failure of IBM's Watson; Vertical Integration Backfires
I have blogged periodically about IBM's Watson which has never lived up to its early expectations (see:Scandal at M.D. Anderson -- Operating Loss and Then Watson Deep-Sixed).Forbes recently published a piece about Watson with an analysis of this failure (see:IBM Watson And The Value Of Open) and below is an excerpt from it:...[W]ith the passage of more time, it must be said that IBM Watson has not delivered the results that IBM expected. One particular moment was the decision of MD Anderson ’s Cancer Center to withdraw from its partnership with IBM in 2017. An internal audit by the University of Texas fou...
Source: Lab Soft News - February 18, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: AI Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Medical Research Quality of Care Source Type: blogs
Why Some Hospital CEOs May Be Opposing Interoperability in Support of Epic
In a recent post, I discussed the opposition to the proposed HHS rule on EHR interoperability on the part of Judith Faulkner, founder and CEO of Epic, and the CEOs of some 60 health systems (see:Faulkner Opposes Proposed HHS Hospital Interoperability Rules; No One Surprised). In this note, I would like to discuss some possible reasons why the CEOs of health systems might oppose such a rule.Firstly and as I have long maintained (see: NYT Op-Ed on EHR Interoperability Blames Vendors and Greedy Hospitals), data portability enables healthcare consumers to"shop" hospitals. However, they may not always do so on a...
Source: Lab Soft News - February 16, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: AI Cost of Healthcare Diagnostics Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Innovations Healthcare Insurance Medical Consumerism Predictive Analytics Public Health Source Type: blogs
