A New Perspective on Telemedicine: Patient Visits with Multiple Providers
A recent article byRay Dorsey andEric Topol provided a perspective on telemedicine that I had not encountered before (see:Here ’s What Your Future Doctor Visits Could Look Like). It described virtual visits as adata exchange with multiple providers rather than a visit with a single physician as is the normal approach today. Below is the relevant excerpt from the article:Today ’s office visit to a doctor involves a patient, a family member, and a physician 97% of the time. Tomorrow’s visit will engage nurse practitioners, nutritionists, genetic counselors, pharmaci...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 10, 2017 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Information Technology Quality of Care Telemedicine Source Type: blogs
Case of the Week 445
This week ' s amazing case was donated by Mr. Boren Huot. This object was seen in a stool specimens from a patient in Cambodia. Identification? (CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO ENLARGE) (Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites)
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - May 8, 2017 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
FDA Approves the Philips Digital Pathology WSI Solution for Primary Diagnosis
As many of the readers of this blog already know, the Philips platform for digital pathology was recently approved by the FDA for the primary diagnosis of cases using WSI (see:FDA allows marketing of first whole slide imaging system for digital pathology). Primary diagnosis with digital pathology has been a long slog but we have now turned a major corner. Philips presented a webinar yesterday about PIPS (Philips IntelliSite Pathology Solution) which is accessible on-line (see:Philips IntelliSite Pathology Solution now available for primary diagnostic use in the U.S.) He...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 5, 2017 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Digital Imaging in Pathology Food and Drug Administration Healthcare Information Technology Lab Industry Trends Lab Processes and Procedures Lab Regulation LIS Definitions and Strategy Medical Research Pathology Informatics Source Type: blogs
Diagnostic Slide Session cases have been released by AANP
The American Association of Neuropathologists has released the cases for the2017 Diagnostic Slide Session, which will be held at the association ' sannual meeting on Saturday, June 10 from 8 to 11 pm. The session, which will be moderated by Drs. Caterina Giannini Rebecca D. Folkerth, focuses on a discussion of 10 cases submitted by members far and wide. (Source: neuropathology blog)
Source: neuropathology blog - May 3, 2017 Category: Radiology Tags: meetings Source Type: blogs
Some of the Major Criticisms of EHRs; Why Few Changes Anticipated
A recent web article presented a"slide show" of suggestions from readers ofHealthcare IT News about how to"fix" EHRs (see:We asked people how to fix EHRs, and boy did they have answers). I have reworked the 19 items in the article and rearranged them into the list below:Physician interactions with the EHRSimplify EHR screens; reduce number of options and clicks.Eliminate rigid workflow and increase the efficiency of use, particularly for physicians.Incorporate AI and cognitive data tools to generate useful and predictive data.Present data in a more m...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 2, 2017 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Cost of Healthcare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Information Technology LIS Definitions and Strategy LIS Vendor News Quality of Care Source Type: blogs
Why One Should Always Solicit a Second Opinion for a Serious Disease
This article makes the important point that some patients may be financially constrained by their health insurance when seeking a second opinion. This is because some insurers will balk at having diagnostic studies repeated. I suspect, however, that there will only infrequently be a need to repeat radiology studies like CT scans and MRIs. But and as noted above, it's probably worth the cost to pay out-of-pocket for a surgical pathology review as part of a second opinion because the interpretation of a tissue biopsy can sometimes be subjective.Citin...
Source: Lab Soft News - May 1, 2017 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Testing Healthcare Delivery Lab Industry Trends Lab Processes and Procedures Medical Education Medical Ethics Quality of Care Surgical Pathology Source Type: blogs
Case of the Week 444
The week ' s case was generously donated by Dr. Julie Ribes. The following material was obtained from an ostomy bag.Identification? (Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites)
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - April 29, 2017 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Answer to Case 444
Answer: not a parasite; most consistent with banana seeds.This is something that we commonly see in my lab, and I ' ve previously featured other examples of banana seeds on this blog. Here are the links to 2 previous posts:Case 139Case 402Because I ' ve received some degree of skepticism when I ' ve posted banana seeds in the past, I decided to conduct an experiment to see if I could recreate their appearance through some laboratory digestion techniques. So here was my process:Step 1. Sacrifice my banana from lunch for the good of scienceNote the small immature seeds that are seen in these longitudinal sections. A fun fact...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - April 28, 2017 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Most Hospitals Executives Unenthusiastic About Patient Consumerism
Consumerism is altering the economic landscape. One only need look at the decline in sales at bricks-and-mortar retail stores to grasp the power of consumers and the popularity of web technology (see:The Future Of Retailing: The Technology Revolution Is Now). Meanwhile, despite predictions that consumerism will take hold in healthcare, there is little evidence that healthcare executive are taking this trend seriously (see:Consumerism among Healthcare Patients with High-Deductibles Has Not Yet Altered How Most Hospitals and Healthcare Systems Operate). Below is an excerpt from this article:...[...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 27, 2017 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Cost of Healthcare Healthcare Business Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Insurance Hospital Executive Management Hospital Financial Medical Consumerism Quality of Care Source Type: blogs
Best Post of December 2016: Fibrous Bodies Nicely Demonstrated in a Smear from a Somatotroph Pituitary Adenoma
The next in our " Best of the Month Series " is from December 2, 2016:Christian Davidson, MDDr. Christian Davidson, director of neuropathology at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospitalin New Jersey, provides today ' s blog post:A 30-year-old man presented with bitemporal hemianopsia and a 3.0 cm pituitary mass was discovered upon MRI. His IGF-1 was elevated to 900, but he had no signs of acromegaly. A smear of tissue sent for frozen section evaluation (see below) revealed that most cells had round, eosinophilic, perinuclear inclusions suggestive of fibrous bodies (some examples are circled). Dot-like CAM5.2 ...
Source: neuropathology blog - April 25, 2017 Category: Radiology Tags: Best of the Month series neoplasms pituitary Source Type: blogs
Telling Daughters About Their Genetic Breast Cancer Risk
We are now in the era of predictive medicine when many of us will have theopportunity to learn about our individual predisposition to develop serious diseases at some point in our lives. This is now a reality for families carrying the BRCA gene (females as well as males) (see:BRCA-Positive Males at Higher Risk for Prostate and Pancreatic Cancer). This topic was discussed in a recent article in theNew York Times. An excerpt from the article is listed below (see:When to Tell Daughters About a Genetic Breast Cancer Risk):As genetic testing has given women and men a trove o...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 25, 2017 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Lab Industry Trends Lab Information Medical Consumerism Medical Education Medical Ethics Source Type: blogs
Case of the Week 443
This week ' s case was donated by Dr. Tom Grys. The patient is an immunocompromised man with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) and fever. He reports travel throughout the United States and Italy. Bone marrow biopsy revealed the following:Identification? (Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites)
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - April 23, 2017 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Answer to Case 443
Answer:LeishmaniaamastigotesThis case shows the characteristic morphology of amastigotes within a macrophage. The arrow below highlights an amastigote in which the nucleus and kinetoplast can both be seen.One of the most important teaching points about this case is that the patient acquired infection in Italy - a country that many physicians (especially in the United States) do not realize is endemic forLeishmania infantum. Of note,Leishmania infantumis nearly identical toL. chagasi,a pathogen found in the Americas, and some consider them to be the same organism (in which caseL. infantumwould have preference). (Source: Cre...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - April 22, 2017 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Telemedicine Used in New Healthcare Settings Like Coaching
I continue to believe that telemedicine will be one of the key elements enabling hospitals to provide services to more consumers at a lower cost. Telemedicine was initially limited to simple, easily diagnosed conditions but is now expanding into areas like chronic care (see: Treatment of Patients with Chronic Diseases: Important for the Future of Telemedicine. Early adopters of telemedicine such as Kaiser Health (see:Kaiser CEO: Telehealth Outpaced In-Person Visits Last Year) and theCleveland Clinic are now testing new types of care delivery...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 21, 2017 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Cost of Healthcare Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Information Technology Medical Consumerism Preventive Medicine Quality of Care Telemedicine Source Type: blogs
" Extinction " for Hospital Data Centers Predicted in Five Years
I have frequently blogged about cloud computing starting nine years ago (see:Finally, A Clear Definition for Cloud Computing). During the course of these nine years, I have also suggested periodically that healthcare IT lags about a decade behind that in most other industries (see:The Potential for"Serverless" Healthcare Computing). It thus seems reasonable that we should now begin to see articles discussing the adoption of cloud computing in healthcare. Along these lines, a recent article predicted that hospital datacenters would be extinct in about five year...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 18, 2017 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Business Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Information Technology Hospital Executive Management Source Type: blogs
