NEW! $5 million refunded by NY to labs
More than $5 million is being refunded by the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) to 35 laboratories resulting from a lawsuit brought by the American Association of Bioanalysts (AAB) alleging that the NYSDOH overcharged the 35 laboratories for New York State inspection and reference fees between 1998 and 2006. Testimony at the trial showed that labs were being charged for things unrelated to regulating clinical laboratories. The court rulings directed the NYSDOH to recalculate the inspection and reference fees for the eight-year period covered by the lawsuit. The NYSDOH subsequently determined that 78% of the fees should be refunded, an amount equal to $5,041,377 for the 35 laboratories. Read more at www.aab.org.

NEW! Public-health laboratory video contest deadline May 1
Let your creative juices flow and promote the public-health lab and why you love working there. The APHL Annual Meeting Planning Committee is sponsoring a video contest, with the winning entry to be announced at the 2011 APHL Annual Meeting and Fifth State Environmental Laboratory Conference being held June 5‐8, 2011, in Omaha, NE. Learn more here.

NEW! CMS expected to rescind signature requirement for lab tests
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will further delay enforcement of a rule requiring physician signatures on laboratory requisitions, according to of the American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA). The physician signature rule technically took effect Jan. 1, but enforcement never occurred because medical and laboratory groups opposed the new regulation, saying it was overly burdensome on physicians and labs, as well as a threat to patient access. CMS officials indicated on April 11 that the agency would be rescinding the rule, with the official rescission of the requirement likely to appear in the proposed Medicare physician fee schedule expected this summer, according to the ACLA. Learn more at www.clinical-labs.org.

NEW! Executive War College Scholarship winner announced
Congratulations to Ali Elbireer, MBA, MT (ASCP), CPHQ, winner of The Executive War College Scholarship contest sponsored by The Dark Report and hosted by MLO. Elbireer receives tuition, travel, and hotel expenses to attend the 2011 Executive War College on Lab and Pathology Management in New Orleans, May 3-4, 2011. Elbireer is the Laboratory Administrative Director for the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) at the Makerere University-Johns Hopkins University (MU-JHU) Core Lab in Kampala. Read how Elbireer’s lab won MLO’s Lab of the Year in 2010 here.

NEW! CMS offers data on hospital-acquired conditions
The CMS has updated its website to include information on the rates of hospital-acquired conditions among Medicare patients at U.S. hospitals. The data from October 2008 to June 2010 covers eight conditions:
catheter-related blood infections;
urinary tract infections; blood transfusions with incompatible blood;
complications from air or gas bubbles entering a blood vessel;
falls, burns, electric shock, broken bones, and other injuries during a hospital stay;
pressure ulcers that develop after a patient enters the hospital;
objects left in patients after surgery (e.g., sponges or surgical instruments); and
poor control of blood sugar for diabetic patients.
Visit www.HealthCare.gov/compare.

NEW! Public-health laboratory conference
The 2011 APHL Annual Meeting and Fifth State Environmental Laboratory Conference takes place at the Qwest Center, in Omaha, NE, June 5-8, 2011. This year’s meeting will discuss issues ranging from environmental issues to emerging infectious diseases and emergency preparedness, from informatics to food safety, newborn screening and global health. Attendees include state, county, city, and local public-health lab directors, environmental and agricultural lab directors, senior laboratory staff, government and private laboratory personnel, and others interested in laboratory issues.
Learn more here.

Pipetting Olympics April 24
Celebrate NMLPW with an educational event. Artel is now offering the Pipetting Olympics as a competition you can host in your own lab. View 10 tips from the experts at Artel here. Learn how to participate in the Pipetting Olympics here.

NEW! Finding the perfect pathology fellowship program
On Thursday, April 28, 2011, at 3:00 p.m. ET, the Pathology Residents Education Program presents the webinar “The essential guide to achieving the perfect pathology fellowship: useful advice and 'must-dos' for first-, second- and third-year residents” designed to help pathology residents identify, apply, and interview for the perfect pathology fellowship. Learn precisely what it takes to demonstrate skills and competencies — and then nail down an offer for the ideal pathology fellowship. Learn more here.

HOT CLIPS: WOMEN’S HEALTH
Readers often remark that they love to “clip” various items from the print pages of MLO. And because MLO covers a myriad of laboratory-related topics, we share a continuing LABline feature: Hot Clips. Click on the highlighted words to discover various MLO archival properties concerning women’s health, a topic that is always at the forefront of healthcare challenges.

• “Fragile X syndrome: Is now the time for population screening?,” asks this question: What role can the laboratory play in educating the various types of physicians who may evaluate these patients and seek the laboratory’s interpretative counsel?
• “The role of nipple-aspirant fluid (NAF) cytology in breast-cancer risk screening” addresses the state of the technology for breast-fluid for breast cytology-sample collection and the opportunity to identify high-risk women earlier.
• “Markers of angiogenesis in breast cancer” reveals that by deciphering the complex process of angiogenesis, doctors may be able to detect patient tumors earlier and develop targeted therapy to arrest the blood supply to tumors.
• “Driving forces in cancer diagnostics,” suggests “new assays, enabled by genomics, multiplexed protein measurements, and bioinformatics” will change the situation confronted at that time: a lack of relevant information, few reliable tests for assessing asymptomatic patients who might have cancer, and complicated treatment choices.
• “The Pap smear: A victim of its own success?” argues that the quick, minimally invasive, and inexpensive PAP smear was one of the most durable innovations in the history of public health. But were expectations raised so high that any result short of perfection is likely to be viewed as malpractice?

Readers may want to scan MLO’s online archives for more information on women’s health, because any tips published might help your laboratory improve its performance when you are required to do any one of a number of tests for female patients.

Certified medical lab professionals earn more than non-certified
Laboratory medical scientists can raise their income by 14% if they become certified, according to the ASCP 2010 Wage Survey.  A non-certified staff-level histotechnician (HT), for example, earns on average $19.60 per hour, but the average wage for a certified HT is $22.98, a 14.7% differential.  Staff-level medical technologists/medical laboratory scientists/clinical laboratory scientists make about 10% more on average than non-certified laboratory professionals in comparable positions. Certified staff phlebotomists earn an average of 10% more than their non-certified counterparts. Read the full report at www.ascp.org/2010Wage.

President Clinton to speak at ASCP meeting
President Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States and the Founder of the William J. Clinton Foundation, will be the keynote speaker at the 2011 ASCP Annual Meeting on Oct. 19, in Las Vegas. His address, “Embracing Our Common Humanity,” will set the stage for an international conference, which is serving as host to the World Association of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (WASPaLM) XXVI World Congress. Learn more here.

Florida hospital employee dies of meningitis-related infection
After an employee at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, FL, died from an apparent blood infection that can lead to meningitis, hospital staff reached out to patients, families, and co-workers who may have been exposed, the St. Petersburg (FL) Times reports. Hospital officials were not aware that she was ill until just hours before her death when she called in sick with flu-like symptoms. Laboratory cultures later confirmed that the infection was Neisseria meningitides. Read more here.

Wisconsin welcomes JDRF riders
Thank you to Mary Hauser, MT(ASCP), from "Coulee Country" in Wisconsin for letting us know that the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) century ride for a cure we reported on in the November issue of LABline travelled along the Mississippi River through Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa — not Mississippi. JDRF riders bicycle throughout the nation to help raise money for research in treatment and elimination of (Type 1) juvenile diabetes. JDRF has awarded more than $1.5 billion to diabetes research, including more than $107 million last year. Visit www.jdrf.org to learn more, and join the group on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/JDRF-Ride-to-Cure/290555879720?ref=ts.

Map tracks U.S. trends in antibiotic resistance
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has created an online tool called ResistanceMap to track trends in antibiotic-resistant pathogens like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii in the United States. ResistanceMap is updated monthly and will soon include interactive features, data on resistance rates in other countries, and new rates of antibiotic use. Learn more here.

Blood test detects early emphysema
Researchers at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center say they are working on a blood test that detects the early development of emphysema — well before symptoms occur. The blood test measures particles that are shed by tiny blood capillaries that surround alveoli in lungs. These particles are debris shed by injury to the air sacs — damage that results in the “Swiss cheese” appearance of the lungs. Researchers reasoned that as capillaries surrounding the air sacs are being injured, debris would be carried out by the blood supply. The researchers found a 95% positive correlation between elevated endothelial microparticles in the blood and an abnormal lung-function test result, meaning that it detected nearly all verified cases of early emphysema in participants.
Learn more here.

HPV vaccinations could cut screening tests
Women who have had the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine could need only two cervical-cancer screening tests for the rest of their lives according to calculations presented at the National Cancer Research Institute Cancer Conference in Liverpool, England. Research suggests that the HPV vaccine will prevent at least seven out of 10 cervical cancers; and new vaccines currently being evaluated should prevent even more. It typically takes more than 10 years for a cancer to develop after HPV infection. Research shows that cancer caused by HPV types not prevented by the current vaccines take even longer. This could allow the first cervical screening to be offered later than age 20 or 25. Read more here.

Few women finish HPV-vaccine regimen
Only one-third of young, urban women eligible for the HPV vaccine initiated vaccination, and only one-third of those who initiated vaccination completed a full course. As many as 29.5% of sexually active young women between the ages of 14 and 19 are infected with HPV, according to researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The researchers reviewed patient data collected at the University of Maryland Medical Center from 2006 to 2010. During that time, 9,658 women and girls from 9- to 26-years-old who were eligible for the vaccine visited the clinic, and 27.3% initiated vaccination. Researchers report that 39.1% received a single dose, 30.1% received two doses, and 30.8% completed vaccination. Read more here.

Cysteine a potential biomarker for sleep apnea
A new study published in the February 2011 issue of Chest indicates that the amino-acid cysteine may be a biomarker for the development of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in obese and non-obese patients. Brazilian researchers compared plasma levels of cysteine in 75 patients with OSA with 75 control subjects. Results showed that cysteine-plasma levels were higher in patients with OSA compared with the control subjects. A subgroup of lean patients (BMI <25) with OSA also had higher cysteine levels than the control subjects. Furthermore, patients with OSA who received continuous positive airway pressure showed a decrease in plasma levels of cysteine after six months. Researchers conclude that cysteine is a potential biomarker for OSA and that obesity does not influence its function as a biomarker.

Submit abstracts to AABB by May 4
AABB’s call for abstracts in the area of transfusion medicine and cellular therapies is open for presentations to be considered for the 2011 Annual Meeting and CTTXPO in San Diego, Oct. 22-25. AABB members and non-members are invited to submit an abstract, free of charge. Accepted abstracts will be available to AABB Annual Meeting attendees. Selected abstracts will be published in TRANSFUSION’s September supplement. Abstracts must be submitted online by 11:59 a.m. May 4, 2011. For more information, visit here.

Become a liquid-handling expert
Artel offers a two-day seminar featuring in-depth education, training, and certification in pipetting technique and the quality control process May 12-13, 2011 and Sept. 22-23, 2011. Receive hands-on instructions in pipetting technique and pipette maintenance. Certification in this course enables standardization of proper pipetting throughout the laboratory, and improves the processes for managing pipettes and ensuring regulatory compliance. Also included are take-away materials (SOP templates, ergonomics, and technique training materials) that can help develop a more robust QA/QC process for pipettes. For more information, visit here.

Reduce contamination events to cut risk of misdiagnosis
What are the three main specimen types that are considered high-risk for misdiagnosis? What are the most important factors enabling a pathologist to recognize contamination? How can contamination during the staining process be avoided? The White Paper “Risk of Misdiagnosis Due to Tissue Contamination May be Higher for Certain Specimen Types: Changes to Laboratory Staining Techniques Offer Opportunity to Reduce Contamination Events” is available through the Dark Report at no charge to help answer these questions and more. Click here.

Mayo Clinic offers phlebotomy conference
“Phlebotomy 2011: Innovations in Quality, Service and Patient Care,” takes place Oct. 6-7, at the Kahler Grand Hotel, Rochester, MN. This two-day conference for phlebotomists, phlebotomy educators, and management staff provides insight into the importance of providing quality service to customers and ensuring a quality management system is put into practice and maintained. Learn more here.

Learn to minimize pre-analytical errors
Radiometer University presents “Error-Free Preanalytics: Fact or Friction?” Tuesday, May 3, 1:00 p.m. ET. The program describes potential causes of pre-analytical errors in blood-gas testing, and teaches how to evaluate and adapt practices in clinical sites and laboratories to minimize occurrence of pre-analytical errors. Register for this free, accredited seminar at www.radiometeramerica.com/webinars.

Gen X, Gen Y, and Baby Boomers working together
With four generations of employees now working side by side, laboratory managers need to rethink their management strategies. Learn how to effectively manage each generation with The Dark Report's audioconference “Managing Multiple Generations in Your Lab: Proven Methods to Motivate Gen X, Gen Y, and Baby Boomers in the Same Workplace,” on Wednesday, April 20, 2011, at 1:00 p.m. ET.
To learn more, visit here.

TO VIEW AN UPDATED LIST OF UPCOMING CONFERENCES, MEETINGS, EVENTS, AND WEBINARS, CLICK HERE.

The 2011 MLO Media Handbook is now online at www.mlo-online.com.

“Blood will tell, but often it tells too much. ”
—Don Marquis,
newspaper columnist and humorist,
(1878-1937)

Medical Laboratory Observer
2506 Tamiami Trail North
Nokomis, FL 34275
941-966-9521

Privacy Statement