In a number of previous notes, I have suggested that our healthcare system is broken and needs radical reform. In one of them, I pointed out some of the absurdities of hospital pricing (see: Why the Prices Charged by Hospital for Inpatient Care Are Irrelevant). I have also discussed in previous note...

It's hard to keep abreast of the "-omics revolution" but I have a sense that help is on the way. A recent article (see: "Metabolomics" Could Lead to Early Blood Test for Parkinson's) suggested to me that lab professionals will now be paying more attention to metabolomics. The art...

Having recently attended the HIMSS conference in Orlando, I was struck by the almost total invisibility of LISs. I spotted only three booths of companies specializing in lab software but there may have been a few more. I posted some of my initial impressions of the HIMSS conference in a recent note ...

I am proud of the fact that there will be 39 exhibitors at the Lab InfoTech Summit on April 9-11, 2008, in Las Vegas and number 40 has just signed up. It's the largest clinical lab software exhibition of its kind. I recently attended HIMSS in Orlando where there was little LIS presence. I understand...

My recent note about the lab test selection algorithms that are available at ARUP Consult (see: ARUP Offers Lab Algorithms for Disease Diagnosis Support) has caused me to think about the appropriate use of lab tests by clinicians. The title of this note -- the right test for the right patient at the...

I have been tracking the value of testing for the leukocyte telomere length (LTL) for a number of months. The test has frequently been promoted by anti-aging physicians as part of their routine test panels to assess one's biologic age as opposed to one's chronologic age. Some of the claims about the...

The Hospitals and Health Networks web site posted an article recently about lab outreach programs (see: The profit potential of Hospital Labs). Read the whole article -- it's worth your time. The portion of the article that caught my attention dealt with the tendency of some hospitals to "flip&...

A recent announcement from Sunquest Information Systems caught my attention (see: Sunquest Contracts with LA County Medical Center for Major Services Project). In my opinion, one of the significant weakness of the clinical lab software industry is that the companies tend to favor software sales over...