Mass spectrometry has been applied in advanced clinical research and drug discovery and development. Continual innovations have created capabilities to address complex analytical challenges qualitatively and quantitatively with unparalleled speed, sensitivity and accuracy
A 2012 study analysing the care of cancer patients in the USA in 138 Veterans’ Administration hospitals (pub: Journal of the National Cancer Institute) questions the effectiveness of tumour board review. The study measured effectiveness by comparing the presence of tumour review boards with stage-specific quality of care and patient outcomes.
Quality management (QM) for medical laboratories shaped its footprint during recent years – it’s a hot topic in papers, conferences and trade fairs. A lot of information makes a lot of work, says Dr Markus Neumann
From the meetings between the Presidents of China and the USA came the slogan, ‘A new model of cooperation’. One item discussed was the proposed $4.6 billion purchase of a US pork producer by a Chinese company, which affirmed: ‘the acquisition won’t affect the quality of the bacon on stateside breakfast tables’.
Milan, Italy – The 20th European Congress of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine certainly lived up to its claim as the EU’s largest event of its kind – 2,407 visitors and 4,786 delegates from 101 countries plus 82 exhibitors fanned out or arranged themselves over the event’s 3,500 square metres, Hanna Politis reports
This year’s EuroMedLab and IFCC-EFLM Congress came at a time when all hospitals face ever-increasing healthcare costs, aging populations and patients and GPs demanding more complex and novel diagnostic tests.
Run by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, the new automated Medical Laboratory at the Northern General Hospital has drawn a previously fragmented service into a purpose-built centre.
If a parameter is determined with different test systems the results must still be comparable. This sounds simple, but is hard to achieve.
EKF Diagnostics has recently marked the production at its manufacturing facility in Barleben, Germany, of the 33,333rd Hemo Control, its globally successful haemoglobin point-of-care analyser, since its launch in 2003.
Remote US examinations is not science-fiction; they are now available for real-time diagnostics.
Bayer HealthCare supports local projects under the "Excellence across Borders" program in order to improve care of people with diabetes. Among the projects is a Diabetic School Awareness Program in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is planned to start in autumn this year.
Smoking increases the risk of heart disease and stroke by five-fold in people under the age of 50 and doubles risk in the over-60s.
Hospital Marina Salud de Dénia presented its Sepsis Code at the National Health IT Conference and Exhibition, which recently took place in Birmingham, UK.
Managing physicians’ test requests is a key ingredient of modern lab management. However, doctors and nurses still do not provide the clinical reasons for orders to all labs.
Lab instruments are marvels of modern technology able to dice, splice and analyse microscopic specimens. Yet pushing the results into modern medical reporting systems is as slow, and often as painful, as pulling teeth.
Switzerland treads softly when it comes to governing its 26 independent-minded cantons. Yet, when it comes to electronic medical records, the Ministry of Health holds a particular power, not to dare to direct policy inside any canton, but for the exchange of data between the cantons
Demand is increasing for point of care (POC) diagnostic testing, particularly for tests that help foster clinical decision-making within 30 minutes or less.
Beckman Coulter, Inc. has released a new bench-top haematology analyser for mid- to high-volume laboratories, and upgraded software for HematoFlow.
‘All human body cells contain the same DNA, but every type of cell – for example a muscle cell compared to that of a nerve – has a different gene expression pattern’, said Dr Sonja Stadler, speaking at the 2012 congress of DGKL (German Society for Clinical Chemistry).
The NHS has to overcome people’s ‘status-quo bias’ if it is to increase the number of screenings for bowel cancer.
Julian Baines, Group CEO of EKF Diagnostics Holdings plc, considers the present role of point of-care tests and their potential value to health services
Although evolving as a tool in medical pathology for years, several factors have hampered its widespread use in this field. Now, a Scientific American article asserts that the time has come for a digital imaging revolution.
A new system might help to analyse unstructured clinical documentation, such as lab/pathology results, thus tapping a wealth of hidden information.
Cliff, a two-year-old beagle, has recently demonstrated his talent for detecting Clostridium difficile according to doctors at the Vrije University Medical Centre (VUMC) in Amsterdam.
A large population-based study from Finland has shown that being unmarried increases the risk of fatal and non-fatal heart attack in both men and women whatever their age.
