Accurate Results in the Clinical Laboratory


Book Description

Accurate Results in the Clinical Laboratory: A Guide to Error Detection and Correction, Second Edition, provides a comprehensive review of the factors leading to errors in all areas of clinical laboratory testing. This trusted guide addresses interference issues in all laboratory tests, including patient epigenetics, processes of specimen collection, enzymes and biomarkers. Clinicians and laboratory scientists will both benefit from this reference that applies discussions to both accurate specimen analysis and optimal patient care. Hence, this is the perfect reference for clinical laboratorians, from trainees, to experienced pathologists and directors. - Provides comprehensive coverage across endocrine, oncology, hematology, immunohistochemistry, immunology, serology, microbiology, and molecular testing - Includes new case studies that highlight clinical relevance and errors to avoid - Highlights the best titles published within a variety of medical specialties - Reviewed by medical librarians and content specialists, with key selections compiled in their annual list




Medicare Laboratory Payment Policy


Book Description

Clinical laboratory tests play an integral role in helping physicians diagnose and treat patients. New developments in laboratory technology offer the prospect of improvements in diagnosis and care, but will place an increased burden on the payment system. Medicare, the federal program providing coverage of health-care services for the elderly and disabled, is the largest payer of clinical laboratory services. Originally designed in the early 1980s, Medicare's payment policy methodology for outpatient laboratory services has not evolved to take into account technology, market, and regulatory changes, and is now outdated. This report examines the current Medicare payment methodology for outpatient clinical laboratory services in the context of environmental and technological trends, evaluates payment policy alternatives, and makes recommendations to improve the system.




Endogenous Interferences in Clinical Laboratory Tests


Book Description

The goal of clinical laboratories is to produce accurate information for clinical decision making in medicine. More than half of the medical decisions made depend on clinical laboratory tests. Patient safety represents an important and critical problem for laboratories. They need to assure that the information they deliver to physicians is accurate, and therefore safe for clinicians to use. Endogenous compounds can interfere with laboratory tests, decreasing accuracy and threatening patient safety. Elevated bilirubin (bilirubinemia) and elevated lipids (lipemia) are common conditions that cause significant interferences with laboratory results. Clinicians depend on laboratories to detect these endogenous interferences. Laboratories must have a means to detect these endogenous interferences, make decisions about reporting results, and evaluate their impact. Most clinical pathology books provide only an abbreviated introduction to the subject, or provide a long list of references, without the necessary foundation for evaluating their significance. Package inserts typically provide scant information. This book provides the empirical and theoretical foundation for these interferences, describes the clinical settings where they occur, and explains their evaluation and detection, allowing the laboratory to interpret the available data on interferences and make the appropriate decision to effectively report test results while protecting patient safety.




Mass Spectrometry for the Clinical Laboratory


Book Description

Mass Spectrometry for the Clinical Laboratory is an accessible guide to mass spectrometry and the development, validation, and implementation of the most common assays seen in clinical labs. It provides readers with practical examples for assay development, and experimental design for validation to meet CLIA requirements, appropriate interference testing, measuring, validation of ion suppression/matrix effects, and quality control. These tools offer guidance on what type of instrumentation is optimal for each assay, what options are available, and the pros and cons of each. Readers will find a full set of tools that are either directly related to the assay they want to adopt or for an analogous assay they could use as an example. Written by expert users of the most common assays found in a clinical laboratory (clinical chemists, toxicologists, and clinical pathologists practicing mass spectrometry), the book lays out how experts in the field have chosen their mass spectrometers, purchased, installed, validated, and brought them on line for routine testing. The early chapters of the book covers what the practitioners have learned from years of experience, the challenges they have faced, and their recommendations on how to build and validate assays to avoid problems. These chapters also include recommendations for maintaining continuity of quality in testing. The later parts of the book focuses on specific types of assays (therapeutic drugs, Vitamin D, hormones, etc.). Each chapter in this section has been written by an expert practitioner of an assay that is currently running in his or her clinical lab. Provides readers with the keys to choosing, installing, and validating a mass spectrometry platform Offers tools to evaluate, validate, and troubleshoot the most common assays seen in clinical pathology labs Explains validation, ion suppression, interference testing, and quality control design to the detail that is required for implementation in the lab




Contemporary Practice in Clinical Chemistry


Book Description

Contemporary Practice in Clinical Chemistry, Fourth Edition, provides a clear and concise overview of important topics in the field. This new edition is useful for students, residents and fellows in clinical chemistry and pathology, presenting an introduction and overview of the field to assist readers as they in review and prepare for board certification examinations. For new medical technologists, the book provides context for understanding the clinical utility of tests that they perform or use in other areas in the clinical laboratory. For experienced laboratorians, this revision continues to provide an opportunity for exposure to more recent trends and developments in clinical chemistry. - Includes enhanced illustration and new and revised color figures - Provides improved self-assessment questions and end-of-chapter assessment questions




Pathology: A Modern Case Study


Book Description

A unique case-based molecular approach to understanding pathology Pathology: A Modern Case Study is a concise, focused text that emphasizes the molecular and cellular biology essential to understanding the concepts of disease causation. The book includes numerous case studies designed to highlight the role of the pathologist in the team that provides patient care. Pathology: A Modern Case Study examines the role of anatomic, clinical, and molecular pathologists in dedicated chapters and in descriptions of the pathology of specific organ systems. Features Coverage of pathology focuses on modern approaches to common and important diseases Each chapter delivers the most up-to-date advances in pathology Learning aids include chapter summaries and overviews, bolded terms, and a glossary Common clinically relevant disease are highlighted Disease discussion is based on organ compartment and etiology Coverage includes: Disease and the Genome: Genetic, Developmental and Neoplastic Disease Cell Injury, Death and Aging and the Body's Response Environmental Injury Clinical Practice: Anatomic Pathology Clinical Practice: Molecular Pathology Clinical Practice: Molecular Pathology Organ-specific pathology covering all major body systems Molecular pathology Essential for undergraduate medical students and clinicians who wish to expand their knowledge pathology, Pathology: A Modern Case Study delivers valuable coverage that is directly related to a patient’s condition and the clinical practice of pathology.




Improving Diagnosis in Health Care


Book Description

Getting the right diagnosis is a key aspect of health care - it provides an explanation of a patient's health problem and informs subsequent health care decisions. The diagnostic process is a complex, collaborative activity that involves clinical reasoning and information gathering to determine a patient's health problem. According to Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, diagnostic errors-inaccurate or delayed diagnoses-persist throughout all settings of care and continue to harm an unacceptable number of patients. It is likely that most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, sometimes with devastating consequences. Diagnostic errors may cause harm to patients by preventing or delaying appropriate treatment, providing unnecessary or harmful treatment, or resulting in psychological or financial repercussions. The committee concluded that improving the diagnostic process is not only possible, but also represents a moral, professional, and public health imperative. Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, a continuation of the landmark Institute of Medicine reports To Err Is Human (2000) and Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001), finds that diagnosis-and, in particular, the occurrence of diagnostic errorsâ€"has been largely unappreciated in efforts to improve the quality and safety of health care. Without a dedicated focus on improving diagnosis, diagnostic errors will likely worsen as the delivery of health care and the diagnostic process continue to increase in complexity. Just as the diagnostic process is a collaborative activity, improving diagnosis will require collaboration and a widespread commitment to change among health care professionals, health care organizations, patients and their families, researchers, and policy makers. The recommendations of Improving Diagnosis in Health Care contribute to the growing momentum for change in this crucial area of health care quality and safety.




Laposata's Laboratory Medicine Diagnosis of Disease in Clinical Laboratory Third Edition


Book Description

Publisher's Note: Products purchased from Third Party sellers are not guaranteed by the publisher for quality, authenticity, or access to any online entitlements included with the product. The acclaimed full-color guide to selecting the correct laboratory test and interpreting the results –- covering ALL of clinical pathology Laboratory Medicine is the most comprehensive, user-friendly, and well-illustrated guide available for learning how to order the correct laboratory test and understand the clinical significance of the results. The book features an easy-to-follow, consistent presentation for each disease discussed. Chapters begin with a brief description of the disorder followed by a discussion that includes tables detailing the laboratory evaluation of specific disorders, diagnosis, baseline tests to exclude diagnostic possibilities, and clinical indications that warrant further screening and special testing. With new, increasingly expensive and complicated tests appearing almost daily, Laboratory Medicine, Third Edition is required reading for medical students, clinical laboratory scientists, and healthcare professionals who want to keep abreast of the latest testing procedures and maximize accuracy and patient safety. Features: •48 clinical laboratory methods presented in easy-to-understand illustrations that include information on the expense and complexity of the assays •More than 200 tables and full-color algorithms that encapsulate important information and facilitate understanding •Full-color blood-smear micrographs that demonstrate common abnormal morphologies of red blood cells •Valuable learning aids in each chapter, including learning objectives, chapter outlines, and a general introduction -- and new to this edition: chapter-ending self-assessment Q&A•Logical systems-based organization that complements most textbooks •Extensive table of Clinical Laboratory Reference Values that show the conversions between U.S. and SI units for each value




Textbook of Patient Safety and Clinical Risk Management


Book Description

Implementing safety practices in healthcare saves lives and improves the quality of care: it is therefore vital to apply good clinical practices, such as the WHO surgical checklist, to adopt the most appropriate measures for the prevention of assistance-related risks, and to identify the potential ones using tools such as reporting & learning systems. The culture of safety in the care environment and of human factors influencing it should be developed from the beginning of medical studies and in the first years of professional practice, in order to have the maximum impact on clinicians' and nurses' behavior. Medical errors tend to vary with the level of proficiency and experience, and this must be taken into account in adverse events prevention. Human factors assume a decisive importance in resilient organizations, and an understanding of risk control and containment is fundamental for all medical and surgical specialties. This open access book offers recommendations and examples of how to improve patient safety by changing practices, introducing organizational and technological innovations, and creating effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable care systems, in order to spread the quality and patient safety culture among the new generation of healthcare professionals, and is intended for residents and young professionals in different clinical specialties.




Linne & Ringsrud's Clinical Laboratory Science - E-Book


Book Description

Updated and easy-to-use, Linne & Ringsrud's Clinical Laboratory Science: The Basics and Routine Techniques, 6th Edition delivers a fundamental overview of the laboratory skills and techniques essential for success in your classes and your career. Author Mary Louise Turgeon's simple, straightforward writing clarifies complex concepts, and a discipline-by-discipline approach helps you build the knowledge to confidently perform clinical laboratory tests and ensure accurate, effective results. Expert insight from respected educator and author Mary Louise Turgeon reflects the full spectrum of clinical laboratory science. Engaging full-color design and illustrations familiarize you with what you'll see under the microscope. Streamlined approach makes must-know concepts and practices more accessible. Broad scope provides an ideal introduction to clinical laboratory science at various levels, including MLS/MLT and Medical Assisting. Hands-on procedures guide you through the exact steps you'll perform in the lab. Learning objectives help you identify key chapter content and study more effectively. Case studies challenge you to apply concepts to realistic scenarios. Review questions at the end of each chapter help you assess your understanding and identify areas requiring additional study. A companion Evolve website provides convenient online access to procedures, glossary, audio glossary and links to additional information. Updated instrumentation coverage familiarizes you with the latest technological advancements in clinical laboratory science. Perforated pages make it easy for you to take procedure instructions with you into the lab. Enhanced organization helps you study more efficiently and quickly locate the information you need. Convenient glossary provides fast, easy access to definitions of key terms.