Clinical Laboratory Consulting Services

The December 2011 web version of Clinical Laboratory News has a great article on CMS and CDC’s work on an overhaul of proficiency testing regulations. Definitely a must read for any laboratory administrator.

CLN – Proficiency Testing: Making the Grade

Would you like the opportunity to take your laboratory safety program from good to great to AWESOME? ASCLS is partnering with “The Safety Lady” to offer The 2012 Advanced Academy for Lab Safety Excellence to members. The Advanced Academy will help you discover the secrets to lab safety that have taken others years to acquire, including:

• Help you navigate the complex regulations that impact your world of laboratory safety
• Provide a network of colleagues to help you solve your most challenging safety issues
• Give you the confidence to be successful in your role as a laboratory safety officer

The 2012 Academy is an advanced course and will cover in-depth material not previously presented. Six 90-minute webinars over a twelve month period will be presented. Each webinar will be held at 1pm ET/noon CT/11am MT/10am PT.

There are 3 different registration options and pricing. For schedule of topics, registration information, and more go to www.ascls.org/?SafetyLady. Register before January 1, 2012 and save $100. All registrations must be received by January 5, 2012 as the course begins January 11, 2012.

The safety academy is presented by Terry Jo Gile, The Safety Lady®. She can be contacted at info@safetylady.com.

I had a great time speaking at the ASCLS Region I Fall Seminar in Springfield, MA last week. It’s always great to get out to the different areas in the country and have an opportunity to network and meet some new medical laboratory professionals. Thanks to Kyle Riding and the folks in ASCLS Region I for inviting me to speak.

I recently learned that a program proposal submitted by my ASCLS colleague Rebecca Rogers from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN has been accepted for the 2012 ASCLS Annual Meeting, to be held in Los Angeles, CA July 17th – 21st, 2012. Rebecca and I will be co-presenting a session on Social Networking, with a focus on how it relates to and can be used by members of a professional organization.

Rebecca is the Chair of the ASCLS Social Networking Task Force and she and her group are responsible for 100% of the very successful social networking efforts of that organization. If you’re interest in Social Networking and are planning on attending the ASCLS or AACC meetings in LA, we’d love to have you attend.

It’s been an incredibly busy summer and fall! In July my ASCLS colleague Deb Rodahl and I co-presented our session on “Identifying and Implementing Non-Labor Savings in Your Laboratory” at the ASCLS Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA, and then in September we were asked to give the same presentation at the Intermountain States Seminar in Jackson, Wyoming. Two weeks ago I gave a solo presentation on the same topic at the Northeast Laboratory Symposium in Portland, OR. Thank you to Ellen Libby for inviting me to speak.

This Friday, November 4th, I will be speaking at the ASCLS Region I Seminar in Springfield, MA. If you’re in the area I’d love to have you drop by to hear my talk, and the other speakers who will be presenting.

I really enjoy the opportunity to get out on the road and present at all of these different laboratory conferences, and to meet and network with clinical laboratorians from around the country.

As a consultant, I am occasionally asked if I can assist with reducing test utilization. I recently read a Wall Street Journal article (among others) entitled “Reducing Unnecessary Blood Tests By Telling Doctors the Cost” that refers to an article published in Archives of Surgery, “Surgical Vampires and Rising Health Care Expenditure.” In short, the article refers to a fairly short 11 week study that was done to make residents at a tertiary care hospital aware of the daily charges for phlebotomy, and at least during the duration of the study they saw a significant reduction in orders, which translated into a $$ savings.

A quick Google search shows that many news outlets picked up this story, as they should, but I have some concerns. Read more…

I’m off to Baltimore this Sunday for ThinkLab ’11. Looking forward to some great sessions, but also to visiting with my CLMA colleagues.

In a Joint Signature memorandum dated March 31, 2011 CMS has notified it’s contractors not to enforce the requirement to have a physician or NPP signature on paper requisitions for clinical diagnostic laboratory tests paid under the clinical laboratory fee schedule, and will focus for the remainder of 2011 on changing the regulations. This change came about largely due to a focused effort of the clinical laboratory community who contact lawmakers to tell them what a burden requiring physician signatures on paper requisitions would cause for any clinical laboratories doing outreach testing.

From Dark Daily:

“We believe the fact that 89 members of the House of Representatives and 34 members of the U.S. Senate signed a letter to CMS recommending that the rule should be repealed had a significant effect on the decision,” Birenbaum commented. “And those who signed the letter were both Republicans and Democrats and they were about equally split.”

Here is the text of the memo: Read more…

The American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science (ASCLS) and the Clinical Laboratory Management Association (CLMA) have announced that they have formed a task force to investigate opportunities for collaboration between the two organizations. Members of both organizations received an email on April 7, 2011 from their respective Presidents with the following message:

We are pleased to announce that the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science (ASCLS) and Clinical Laboratory Management Association (CLMA) have formed a task force, Read more…

I will be attending the upcoming CLMA ThinkLab ’11 in Baltimore, Maryland this May 22-25.

ThinkLab is a great opportunity to get some Laboratory Management focused CE, and for networking with laboratory and industry leaders, outreach directors and other consultants from around the country. Looking forward to seeing all my CLMA friends and colleagues in Baltimore.

I hope to see you there.