I have posted a number of previous notes about RHIOs. If you review these notes, you will discover that I have never been enthusiastic about RHIOs and their business models because I never thought that they offered sufficient incentives for hospitals to participate. John Moore, who blogs over at Chilmark Research, distinguishes between RHIOs and HIEs and predicts in a recent note, accurately in my opinion, why the latter organizations will have a greater chance of success (Why HIEs Succeed... Read Full Story

In a recent note on identifying the "tissue of origin" of malignant lesions based on new technology from Pathwork Diagnostics (see: "Tissue of Origin" Genomic Test Receives FDA Approval), I received the following comment from Glenda G. Anderson:As founder of Pathwork and its technology, it is very encouraging to hear that you have found the raw agreement indices to be "important descriptive statistics with unique common-sense value". We worked particularly hard on this aspect of the product... Read Full Story

I want to call to your attention to a valuable clinical lab resource -- a set of video interviews located at the Washington G-2 Reports web site. There are currently 30 links to these short videos which provide a virtual cornucopia of useful information about the clinical lab industry. Here's a small sampling of the titles represented: What's the FDA's Current Thinking on the Regulatory Oversight of Molecular Diagnostic Tests? Consulting with Pathologists on Molecular Diagnostics The... Read Full Story

I have posted a number of notes about contract research organizations (CROs) in the past, primarily relating to Covance and Charles River. My interest in them has been sparked by the fact that lab testing comprises a large component of the clinical trials that they manage.The news continues to be bullish on CROs, in part because of the active outsourcing of Big Pharma to the CROs which have been quite willing to respond to these new opportunities (see: Lilly outpacing the industry in... Read Full Story

The Dark Report is sponsoring an upcoming audio conference -- Increase Your Lab Revenue With Better Billing & Coding: How To Collect More Money While Slashing Collection Costs. Here are some of the details: DATE: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 TIME: 1 p.m. EDT; 12 p.m. CDT; 11 a.m. MDT; 10 a.m. PDT PLACE: Your telephone or speakerphone COST: $195 per dial-in site (unlimited attendance per site) by 8/22/08; $245 thereafter TO REGISTER: Click here or call 1-800-560-6363 toll-free Read Full Story

In a recent note about the major strategic challenges facing pathology (see: Strategic Challenges Facing Hospital-Based Pathology & Lab Medicine Groups), I dismissed pod-labs, also known as condo-labs, as one of the top ten challenges. I suggested at that time that this business model would continue to decline because of legal and regulatory challenges. The Dark Daily now brings us some interesting news about the acquisition of UroPath, an AP-condo-lab operation, by HealthTronics (see: AP... Read Full Story

Many healthcare professionals are very computer literate. Among the younger members of the group, I am sure that the percentage approaches 100%. However, when we define computer literacy, we tend to ignore the "computers" that the majority of U.S. citizens carry around in their pockets -- cell phones and particularly smart phones. In other words, we tend to make a distinction between a computer and a cell phone although the two platforms are rapidly converging. More people have ready access... Read Full Story

I tend not to get too exercised about privacy issues regarding personal health records, in part because the horse is already out of the barn. This point was made abundantly clear in a recent article (see: “Health 2.0″ vs. Health Insurers: The Looming Clash). Below is an excerpt from it with boldface emphasis mine: Earlier this week, the Washington Post revealed that health insurers can now obtain a sort of health “credit report” on individuals thanks to the vast store of digitized drug... Read Full Story

I have posted a number of previous notes about the need for pathologists to provide more scientific assessments of disease prognosis (i.e., disease outcome) within surgical pathology reports (see: Assessing Disease Prognosis in Pathology and Lab Medicine; Expanding the Definition of the Early Health Model). I believe that this can be ultimately accomplished by the assessment of serum and tissue biomarkers but this approach is not highly developed at this time. A recent article (see... Read Full Story

Although I have not practiced surgical pathology for many years, I still have very vivid memories of examining the cells of poorly differentiated lesions under the microscope for clues about their tissue of origin. Even in those days, such information was important for oncologists in order to select the optimal chemotherapy for patients. We now learn of the announcement of a new test for "tissue of origin" of malignant lesions (see: FDA Clears the Pathwork Tissue of Origin Test for Hard-To... Read Full Story