Newsbytes

“The hope is to create something with more flexibility to handle those sorts of deviations from the expected pattern,” Dr. Stock says. “This results in a more robust system that lets you process reports that may have some human error baked into them.”

—Renee Caruthers

U.S. labs go live with Labgnostic laboratory exchange network

Labgnostic, a U.S. subsidiary of United Kingdom-based X-Lab, has announced that TriCore clinical laboratory, Albuquerque, NM, and renal pathology-focused Arkana Laboratories, Little Rock, Ark., are the first two U.S. laboratories to use its Labgnostic systems-agnostic laboratory exchange hub.

Laboratories linked to the Labgnostic hub can send diagnostic test requests and results to others participating in the network via a single interface and track specimens exchanged with participating laboratories.

“Labgnostic allowed us to interface with one of our referral labs, Arkana,” said TriCore’s chief operating officer, Eric Carbonneau, in a company press release. “We’ll leverage the single interface to the Labgnostic network to connect to more of our vendors. This saves us the hidden overhead costs of supporting and licensing multiple interfaces.”

TriCore plans to interface to additional partner laboratories via the Labgnostic hub this year, according to Labgnostic.

Survey spotlights medical courier delays and errors affecting pathology labs

Medical courier delays and errors frequently affect laboratorians’ ability to provide timely and accurate test results to patients and underscore the need for reliable health care logistics solutions, according to a survey sponsored by MedSpeed and conducted by CAP TODAY magazine.

Eighty-six percent of 269 laboratory professionals—representing numerous job titles within the laboratory—who responded to the survey reported that medical courier delays or errors affect their ability to provide patients with results at least once a month. All participants reported that medical couriers influence their work on a weekly basis. More specifically, 61 percent of laboratory supervisors, managers, and directors who responded to the survey reported that couriers lost irreplaceable specimens within the 12 months prior to the survey, which was conducted from late February to late March. Eighteen percent of that respondent subset indicated that loss of irreplaceable specimens occurred five or more times in the year-long timeframe.

When lab professionals were asked how frequently they needed to collect another specimen or sample due to courier error, 72 percent said they had to do so within a year of answering the survey. Among all respondents, 18 percent said they had to collect another specimen once within that timeframe, 26 percent said two to four times, 28 percent said five or more times, and 28 percent said never.

“The survey findings underscore the financial impact that logistics has on care delivery, particularly when considering the cost in delays to procedures,” says Jake Crampton, CEO of the health care logistics service provider MedSpeed.

The survey also found that 42 percent of lab professionals have requested stat pickups or deliveries to supplement untrustworthy scheduled service; 32 percent have transported or shipped specimens themselves; and 48 percent have stayed past their work shift to wait for a courier.

“MedSpeed overcomes courier delivery issues and errors by using scanners equipped with its custom tracking application,” says Crampton. “The application has workflows that guide our team through their day, prompting them to drop the specimens at the correct destination. Laboratorians can use our online portal, MyMedSpeed, to track specimens, ensuring a proper chain of custody.”

MedSpeed, 866-901-4201

Epic and Microsoft expand strategic collaboration

Microsoft and Epic have expanded their long-standing relationship focused on developing generative artificial intelligence and integrating it into health care by striking a deal that combines Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service and Epic’s EHR.

“This co-innovation is focused on delivering a comprehensive array of generative AI-powered solutions integrated with Epic’s EHR to increase productivity, enhance patient care, and improve the financial integrity of health systems globally,” according to a joint press release from the companies.

The collaboration will also extend natural language queries and interactive data analysis to Epic’s SlicerDicer self-service reporting tool for data exploration.

“Our exploration of OpenAI’s GPT-4 [large multimodal language model] has shown the potential to increase the power and accessibility of self-service reporting through SlicerDicer,” said Seth Hain, senior vice president of research and development at Epic, in the press statement.

Epic, 608-271-9000

Dr. Aller practices clinical informatics in Southern California. He can be reached at raller@usc.edu. Dennis Winsten is founder of Dennis Winsten & Associates, Healthcare Systems Consultants. He can be reached at dennis.winsten@gmail.com.