Reorganize, promote, shift, assess—staying staffed amid a shortage
June 2023—The labor shortage may ease now and then for some laboratories in some areas, but the general outlook is that it will stick around for a while—if not forever.
Webinars and Sponsored Roundtables — Register Now
Thursday, May 28, 2026, 1:00–2:00 PM ET
This session is designed to improve understanding and application of recent updates to synoptic pathology reporting protocols such as the latest Reporting Template for Reporting Results of Biomarker Testing of Specimens from Patients with Carcinoma of the Breast. These changes reflect evolving clinical guidelines that directly influence diagnostic accuracy and treatment selection in breast cancer care.
Webinar presenters Thaer Khoury, MD, FCAP, Chair, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Cente, and Colin Murphy, CEO of mTuitive.
Moderated by: Bob McGonnagle, Publisher, CAP TODAY
Wednesday, June 24, 2026, 12:00–1:00 PM ET
Hear an expert discuss the expanded clinical utility of HER2 IHC scoring in metastatic breast cancer and its impact on your practice
Webinar presenters Michelle Shiller, DO, AP, CP, MGP, FACP, Baylor University Medical Center.
Moderated by: Bob McGonnagle, Publisher, CAP TODAY
Subspecialties
Interactive Product Guides
Clinical Pathology
Workflow, specimen transport under the lens at AACC
June 2023—Transporting specimens to the laboratory, and processing and distributing them within the lab, will be what AACC meeting-goers hear about in a session next month.
Kaiser, Geisinger: the first of similar headlines?
June 2023—Consolidation in health care makes the news often. But the coming together of Kaiser Permanente and Geisinger Health and their launch of Risant Health got special attention. CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle asked Compass Group members for their take on the acquisition when they met online on May 2.
The intersection of news, core labs, and lab costs
June 2023—As CAP TODAY assembled its annual guides to chemistry and immunoassay analyzers (for this issue and the July issue), publisher Bob McGonnagle brought together IVD manufacturers and lab leaders to talk about consolidation and ever-larger health systems, technology, efficiencies, and centralized and decentralized testing.
Supported? Satisfied? Keeping staff from moving on
May 2023—When hiring is difficult, how to improve retention becomes what it’s all about. Linking sign-on bonuses with performance metrics rather than time in the job is one way to try to retain employees in an industry in which demand for staff far outweighs the supply.
After negative CT for brain injury, a biomarker gap
April 2023—Traumatic brain injury triage in the emergency department is badly in need of biomarkers—and ones that can change practice. “If biomarkers don’t change practice, they’re a waste of time,” said W. Frank Peacock IV, MD, professor of emergency medicine, vice chair of research, and research director, Department of Emergency Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine.
Lab leaders on hires, wages, scanners, and storage
April 2023—How is the demand for biomarker tests linked to new oncology drugs playing out in your health system? It is one of several questions laboratory leaders answered in a March 7 Compass Group call led by Stan Schofield, VP and managing principal of the Compass Group and formerly of NorDx/MaineHealth. That and digital pathology and the cost of storage, staffing and wages, the release of results, and the financial implications of the end of the public health emergency were the topics of the day. The Compass Group is an organization of not-for-profit IDN system laboratory leaders who collaborate to identify and share best practices and strategies.
Case review reveals latest on overtransfusion
March 2023—A retrospective study of patients who received blood transfusions at 15 community hospitals found that just over half of the patient encounters reviewed could have been managed without the transfusion of at least one component type, and 45 percent could have been managed without any transfusion.
Digging deep to drive recruitment and retention
March 2023—All in on staff retention and solving staff shortages, some made worse temporarily by weather. That’s where laboratories were when Compass Group members told CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle in their Feb. 7 call where hospitals and labs were aiming their efforts. From safety huddles and stay interviews to arranging for overnight stays and incentives, the work to remain sufficiently staffed continues. The Compass Group is an organization of not-for-profit IDN system laboratory leaders who collaborate to identify and share best practices and strategies.
For those who want it easy, blood draws anywhere
March 2023—The need was always there for some. For others, it’s a matter of convenience. “Home phlebotomy as a concierge service” is how Michael Eller describes what went live in 2019 in New York at Northwell Health, where he is assistant vice president of business development for its laboratories. “It was just a matter of using the capacity we already had in the field and hiring appropriately as needed,” he says.