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“We have had dashboards that have shown us data that clearly didn’t reflect what we were doing in the lab, so we learned a lesson in always double-checking the fidelity of the data and the accuracy of the dashboard before using it,” Dr. Leung says.

Furthermore, to help address the challenges of large numbers of staff across departments performing POC tests, the informatics and data science team is developing an automated system for managing employee competency training documentation.

Many systems for managing competency documentation are labor-intensive and not scalable enough to accommodate a POC program with 3,500 users, Dr. Leung explains. Yet working together, the informaticists and POC team are creating digital competency forms that will be accessible to employees through the hospital’s SharePoint Web-based collaborative platform. As employees fill out the digital forms, the documents will be saved on SharePoint, and the information entered into them will be collected into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or Microsoft Access database so the POC team can easily access and analyze it.

“If an inspector comes to the site and asks for training and competency documentation, there will be two ways we can show it—by pulling the individual’s digital form or by opening up the database,” Dr. Leung says.

The database containing employee competency records is not linked to the middleware database in which much of the testing data are stored, although Dr. Leung doesn’t rule out eventually connecting them.

“Maybe in the future,” he says, “we can look at opportunities to at least have the two databases share common information. But for right now, because it’s complex enough, we are taking baby steps.”

—Renee Caruthers

SNOMED and Regenstrief announce joint project

The Regenstrief Institute, developers of LOINC, and SNOMED International are collaborating on a unified approach to adopting standardized health care terminology, with the goal of increasing interoperable health data exchange worldwide.

Under the agreement, SNOMED International and Regenstrief will coordinate their use of SNOMED CT (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms) and LOINC (Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes) while minimizing duplication among the terminologies. However, each organization will retain editorial control of its respective offering.

The agreement lays the foundation for developing a LOINC extension that aligns with the SNOMED CT model. This will allow the organizations to distribute both LOINC and SNOMED CT content to their respective users.

“The extension will create both SNOMED CT and LOINC codes for all concepts that are shared between the terminologies, making it easy for implementers to have a unified approach to implementing both standards and to meet clinical and regulatory requirements globally,” according to a posting on the Regenstrief Institute website.

Xifin gains Hitrust certification for updated RCM software

Xifin has launched Xifin RPM 15, the latest version of its cloud-based revenue cycle-management platform, which has earned certified status for information security from the Hitrust Alliance.

“This significant investment and achievement of Hitrust risk-based, two-year certification demonstrates that Xifin RPM has met key regulations and industry-defined requirements for information security,” said Marty Barrack, Xifin’s chief legal and compliance officer, in a press statement.

Features introduced in Xifin RPM 15 include:

• an enterprise-grade business intelligence portfolio that provides quarterly metrics and industry benchmarks.
• a patient responsibility estimator that uses eligibility and coverage data at the payer and plan level to take into account different categories of benefits coverage.
• claim status workflow automation that enhances configurability by reason code to automate next and final actions.
• customized appeal letters that can be configured for any denial code or procedure code for most providers.

Xifin, 866-934-6364

UCLA researchers create miniaturized lab test kit

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles have developed technology for a handheld all-in-one laboratory kit that is intended to significantly increase the speed and volume of disease testing while reducing the cost and use of supplies.

The diagnostic kit uses pinhead-sized magnets to perform fully automated multiplexed and pooled testing. The automated tests can be easily manufactured, deployed, and performed in a timely manner at physician offices, clinics, or mass testing sites in airports and schools at the onset of a major infectious disease outbreak, according to a UCLA press statement.

In a paper published online in Nature last month (Lin H, et al. 2022;611:570–577), the researchers explained that the kits use a circuit board that controls a set of movable 1-mm magnetic disks, or “ferrobots,” to transport samples through the diagnostic workflow of a nucleic acid amplification test. Because the steps to separate, sort, mix, and amplify testing samples are automated and performed at a miniaturized level inside the kit, the device can test dozens of patient samples at once using the materials employed to test one patient today.

In addition to being employed for diagnostics, the technology can be used for omics, drug development, and chemical and biomaterial synthesis, according to the Nature article.

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 dwinsten.az@gmail.com.