Medical Laboratory Observer articles from October 2006

Medical Laboratory Observer archives from October 2006

The case of the missing donations.(From the editor)
October 1, 2006... Sister called. Big news. Our childhood idol, Nancy Drew, is now a books-on-tape heroine. This month when Miami hosts AABB's Annual Meeting and TXPO guests, I believe that to celebrate I will "motor" over in my "best frock" and "investigate"...

Ahoy, MLTs.(Readers respond)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2006... Thanks for the wonderful story on Mercy Ships [MLO, September 2006, "MLTs sail on the high seas and explore the ocean's treasure," p. 46]. In fact, the story is very interesting about all of the people you featured! You did a great job. ...

Why such a large discrepancy?(Readers respond)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2006... My question concerns blood codeine levels. The table found at MLO at this address: www.mlo-online.com/clr/searchdrugs.asp?class=l lists therapeutic blood levels for codeine of 13-33 nanograms per milliliter. The same table gives a toxic blood...

The rest of the story.(Readers respond)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2006... Editor's Note: Rosetta Hickstein, MT(ASCP), core lab supervisor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, FL, asked a question about a Washington Report article on page 48 in our May 2006 issue: "New...

Avian flu update.(Infectious diseases)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Avian flu update. By Sept 8, the World Health Organization (WHO) had confirmed 97 cases of bird flu worldwide this year, with 65 resulting in death. Indonesia ranks first with 44 confirmed cases; Egypt is second with 14 cases; and China and...

West Nile virus status.(Infectious diseases)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... West Nile virus status. A rise in West Nile virus (WNV) cases is predicted due to the ongoing heat wave across the United States. Experts say that 2006 will be the worst season for WNV in three years. So far this year, 19 people have died from...

Untreatable tuberculosis.(Infectious diseases)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Untreatable tuberculosis. The WHO reports the emergence of a highly resistant form of tuberculosis, dubbed XDR TB (extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis). Already of concern is the presence of MDR TB, a multidrug-resistant strain that requires...

Superbug now super-resistant.(Infectious diseases)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Superbug now super-resistant. According to a review article published in the Sept. 2 issue of The Lancet, the methicillin-resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus may soon prove unstoppable. Unlike the less-resistant strain typically found in...

Immunizations update.(News)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Immunizations update. On Aug. 14, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices issued a provisional recommendation for HPV vaccination with Gardasil for girls 11-12 years of age. Parents,...

U.S. bloodborne transmission.(News)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... U.S. bloodborne transmission. Although substantial advances have been made in reducing the risks to healthcare workers from bloodborne pathogens, the past five years have seen an increase in patient-to-patient transmission from injections in...

Meningitis dipstick.(News)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Meningitis dipstick. As reported in the open-access journal PloS Medicine, colleagues at the Centre de Recherche Medicale et Sanitaire in Niger have developed a dipstick test to identify and differentiate the four types of bacteria that cause...

New book a safe bet.(Education)
October 1, 2006... New book a safe bet. Safety-training expert--and MLO contributor--Terry Jo Gile, MT(ASCP), MA Ed, released Lab Safety Training Made Simple in September. Designed as a companion to her Complete Guide to Laboratory Safety, this new book and...

2006 G-2 guides now available.(Education)
October 1, 2006... 2006 G-2 guides now available. The newest edition of Washington G-2 Reports' Medical Reimbursement Manual for Laboratory & Pathology Services 2006 offers a financial resource for clinical labs, pathology practices, hospitals, medical groups,...

Conferences, audioconferences, and teleconferences.(The Observatory)(Calendar)
October 1, 2006... * Nov. 3-5. The National Foundation for Infectious Disease (NFID), the Emory Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, and the Emory Vaccine Center will sponsor a Clinical Vaccinology Course at the Crowne Plaza...

Emerging technologies for emerging infections.(molecular diagnostics for infectious diseases)(Cover story)
October 1, 2006... CONTINUING EDUCATION To earn CEUs, see test on page 20. LEARNING OBJECTIVES Upon completion of this article, the reader will be able to: * List several emerging/re-emerging infections. * Recognize data reflecting the...

The impact of STIs.(CLINICAL ISSUES)(sexually transmitted infections overview)(Disease/Disorder overview)
October 1, 2006... Despite being among the easiest infections to treat--the majority require only a single dose of antibiotic for a complete cure--sexually transmitted infections (STIs) remain an important cause of morbidity in the United States and throughout...

Generations in the workplace: finding common ground.(LAB MANAGEMENT)(age differences in the workforce)
October 1, 2006... The workforce in America is composed of four generational groups working together, despite having some conflicting characteristics that can inspire difficulties in the areas of perceptions, communications, and goals. Laboratory managers should...

Perrot focuses Diagnostica Stago's expertise.(Executive snapshot)
October 1, 2006... Advances in molecular/genetic diagnostics. Warfarin is a commonly administered anticoagulant therapy worldwide. Genetic factors affecting an individual's response to it have been identified and, in combination with age and body weight, may...

"Diabesity" fills lab day agenda: state learning forum serves as a national model.(EDUCATION)(Conference notes)
October 1, 2006... Based on the growing healthcare concern caused by diabetes, the second annual North Carolina Clinical Laboratory Day on August 4, 2006, at Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, focused on "The Diabetes Challenge: Diagnosis, Education,...

Lab will not pay professional dues.(Addressing management issues)
October 1, 2006... Q I work for a large clinic, and I am distressed by the minimal budgeting allocated to reimburse lab personnel to maintain current membership in their professional organizations and to remain current with professional certifications. Any...

Privacy rules.(Addressing management issues)(rules for medical technologists )
October 1, 2006... Q We are medical technologists and medical laboratory technicians in a small hospital. We rarely see eye-to-eye with our management. Currently, there is an issue with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) policy, about...

Negative controls for bacitracin disks.(Answering your questions)
October 1, 2006... Q What organism should we use for the negative when doing QC for the bacitracin disc? A Bacitracin susceptibility can be helpful in differentiating Streptococcus pyogenes from other beta-streptococci. A 0.04-U bacitracin disk is applied to...

Critical values for albumin.(Answering your questions)
October 1, 2006... Q During a recent Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization's (JCAHO's) survey the lab was asked why we had no critical values for albumin. Our answer was, "Seldom are low or high albumin results life-threatening." Now, we...

Evaluation of collection tubes.(Answering your questions)
October 1, 2006... Q I am considering switching manufacturers for my collection tubes because I can get substantial discounts from a different manufacturer. Is there a procedure that I need to follow in order to complete "correlations" between the two...

Sticking CSF cells to slide.(Answering your questions)
October 1, 2006... Q We have had problems in the past getting cells to stay fixed to slides when doing cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cytospins. Can you offer any advice? A Probably the first issue in cell adherence is to have a clean surface to which the cells...

Extent of wound-culture work-up.(Answering your questions)
October 1, 2006... Q In our hospital, the infectious-disease specialists (all in the same group practice) insist that we do identification and susceptibility testing on all Gram-negative bacilli, Staphylococcus aureus, enterococci, and even coagulase-negative...

The interesting provisions of FMLA.(Liability and the lab)(Family and Medical Leave Act)
October 1, 2006... Q We have an employee who is pregnant and is planning on taking time off to care for her baby. She has accumulated over a month of sick leave and vacation time, and wants to use that for her post-partum leave. The Human Resources (HR) director...

Genetic testing: current and future trends.(SPECIAL FEATURE)
October 1, 2006... Testing for inherited disorders includes a broad spectrum of diseases and is rapidly expanding into complex yet common diseases that are now recognized as having a genetic component. Genetic tests are routinely performed to confirm a suspected...

Custom validation service.(Product focus: Blood-banking and donor systems)
October 1, 2006... This customized system validation provides test-plan development, script writing, and script execution. These services are available individually or as a package. Each quality-control phase is reviewed prior to execution. A project plan is then...

Blood-bank refrigerators.(Product focus: Blood-banking and donor systems)
October 1, 2006... i.Series refrigerators are packed with blood-bank solutions to meet laboratory information and security needs. The integrated monitoring system turns the blood-bank refrigerator into a complete command and information center with a password...

Blood-mixing and -weighing device.(Product focus: Blood-banking and donor systems)
October 1, 2006... The TRANSWAAG microprocessor-controlled blood-mixing and -weighing device can be used where commercially available single/multiple blood-bag systems are used for blood donations. It indicates the volume of blood flowing into the blood bag,...

Transfusion service system.(Product focus: Blood-banking and donor systems)
October 1, 2006... Systematic Blood Bank (SBB) software is a hosted, easy-to-use, complete transfusion-service system delivered affordably. SBB was specifically designed to help small to mid-size blood banks cost-effectively achieve the advantages of a complete...

Comprehensive transfusion service.(Product focus: Blood-banking and donor systems)
October 1, 2006... Laboratory Blood Bank and Blood Bank Donor Modules are newly enhanced graphical user interfaces for IBM AIX, HP Open VMS, and HPTru64 UNIX operating systems. The comprehensive transfusion service helps healthcare providers to improve patient...

High-volume blood-screening instrument.(Product focus: Blood-banking and donor systems)
October 1, 2006... Prism--a fully automated, high-volume, blood-screening instrument--was designed for the transfusion industry to increase lab efficiency. The blood-screening process involves numerous assays, multiple test instruments, and many manual steps....

Blood-screening controls.(Product focus: Blood-banking and donor systems)
October 1, 2006... Introducing a set of tools that help ensure high-quality, cost-effective, and precise blood-screening test results--ACCURUN l multimarker positive and negative controls are multimarker controls specifically designed for use in blood-donor...

Donor-management information system.(Product focus: Blood-banking and donor systems)
October 1, 2006... An eight-member California blood-center consortium asked for help designing and developing an information tracking and management system for blood banking. The result is the SafeTrace donor-management information system. This system has...

Connect lab devices.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... The JavaLin Clinical Interface is a small footprint device designed to connect a variety of clinical devices such as laboratory analyzers to information systems. It is capable of acquiring, interpreting reformatting, and controlling data flow...

Power protection.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... Many healthcare providers are not aware of potential power interruptions until they occur. If power fluctuates for just a few seconds, lab results and data can become corrupted or lost. Proactive planning using an uninterruptible power system...

Temperature recorder.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... The HiTemp150 is a temperature recorder that features a stationary base for placement inside autoclaves, ovens, dishwashers, and other harsh environments. The HiTemp150 can automatically record from -40[degrees]C to +150[degrees]C, with a...

FDA-cleared PE/DVT exclusion.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... Vidas D-Dimer Exclusion is now cleared by the FDA to exclude both the pulmonary embolism (PE) and deep vein thrombosis (DVT) as a diagnosis in outpatients. No further testing is needed when used with a pre-test probability (PTP) assessment in...

Absorbent wipes.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... Bio-Hazard wipes with white absorbent side and bright-orange backing prevent leakage of blood, fluids and chemicals to hands, gloves, and countertops. These wipes prevent the subsequent transmission of microbes or chemicals from gloves to...

Water purity.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... PURELAB Ultra is an advanced water purification system that delivers ASTM Type 1 ultrapure water for critical biological and analytical laboratory techniques. It guarantees 18.2-megohm water and incorporates many innovative features. ...

Lab balances.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... The Sierra Series of precision balances includes four single-range and two dual-range laboratory balances. These automatically display the maximum resolution whenever the balance is tared, regardless of how much weight is zeroed out. A mode key...

Syphilis assay.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... The growing prevalence of syphilis in the United States is a severe public-health concern. LIAISON Treponema Assay is the first, fully automated chemiluminescent blood test that detects early and late stages of syphilis infection. ...

Bleach wipes.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... Super Sani-Cloth Bleach Wipes clean and deodorize non-porous surfaces such as countertops, tables, carts, and equipment. They contain 55% alcohol to achieve faster kill times. Kills a broad range of bacteria and viruses, including: RSV and TB...

Rapid C diff.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... ImmunoCard Toxins A & B, the first rapid test for the detection of Clostridium difficile toxin A and B from fecal samples, is simple and accurate. The product provides clear-cut, color-change results in minutes. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Magnifying and examination light.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... RLM Series Magnifying Lamp/Examination Light offers lab professionals a distortion-free magnification of five diopters (2.25X). Its 22-watt fluorescent ring magnifier lamp delivers a light intensity of 1,000 Footcandles/10,800 Lux and maintains...

Data-management software.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... Document results from MFC 4100 HART Communicator and MFT 4000 Series of documenting process communicators/calibrators. The software, called DPC Manager, allows users to retrieve, save, and print calibration results, and/or HART configurations...

Low-temperature recorder.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... Cryo-temp is a new, ultra-low temperature data recorder that can be placed in environments from -86[degrees]C to +35[degrees]C. It is ideal for blood banks, laboratory freezers, and medical-shipment temperature verification. The Windows-based...

Thyroperoxidase assay.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... A complete menu of automated thyroid tests on one platform is now available with the release of an assay for the quantitative determination of thyroperoxidase antibody (TPOAb) levels in human serum and plasma. With the release of TPOAb,...

Pre-analytical wall chart.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... The first pre-analytical wall chart for platelet aggregation testing, including patient preparation, is available--free of charge--to hospitals around the world. The 28"x 40" full-color wall chart consists of three panels integrated into one...

Test environment controls.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... Medical labs seeking better test environment controls that are fully compliant with FDA and other regulatory guidelines can now obtain Wireless Data Loggers. Use for temperature and humidity monitoring for the ultimate flexibility in monitoring...

Infectious-specimen shippers.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... INFEKTA-PAK is a combination package line of shippers for the transport of infectious medical specimens from all risk groups. Each product includes a pre-printed outer box with all the markings. Simply complete the declaration form, and attach...

Short tissue-freezing time.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... CM 1850 UV with AgProtect features extremely short tissue-freezing times. Temperatures down to -60[degrees]C can be reached through the actively cooled freezing shelf with heat extractor and peltier unit. Other useful features are smooth...

Microarray cartridge.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... The NanoChip 400 site electronic micro-array cartridges are ideal for the development of multiplexed tests. Multiple samples can be applied to the same array and each cartridge may be reused, NanoChip 400 cartridge is more cost-effective to use...

CRP assay.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... The CRP Ultra Wide Range assay is now available, allowing laboratories to consolidate two clinically useful assays into one. The new ultra-sensitive, wide-range immunoassay test measures C-reactive protein (CRP) in serum. The CRP Ultra Wide...

Magnetic stirrer.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... The MagStir Genie is a programmable magnetic stirrer that has three levels for various sample processing. It also features a speed range of 10 to 1800 RPM including reverse and interval stirring for applications ranging from gentle stirring for...

Laboratory freezer.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... The Model C85-12 laboratory freezer is used for medical research, preserving tissue, plasma, blood cells, and other materials. An indicating temperature control provides an adjustable temperature range from -40[degrees]C to -85[degrees]C. The...

Fast and accurate pipetting.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... The Programmable Pipet-Aid Elite 400 rapidly dispenses aliquots with precision. The optional rechargeable battery pack allows convenient portable operation. The ergonomic design includes an integral stand to allow the unit to be easily set down...

Laboratory first-aid kit.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... Designed for clinical labs, the Laboratory First Aid Kit contains all components necessary to treat common injuries. It is unitized for easy access of treatments and ease of inspection. The kit contains: a poison-control directory, antiseptic...

Rapid HSV identification.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... For rapid identification and typing of herpes simplex virus, use the ELVIS HSV. It features a 17-hour turnaround time for reporting both positive and negative results for HSV. The test system includes packages for use in small- or large-volume...

Accurate speed centrifuge.(Industry spotlight)
October 1, 2006... The Ultra 8 Select centrifuge's four-position speed control provides accurate speeds for specific g-forces, for blood, urine, fecal, and other fluids because it properly separates the specimen without cell damage. It has an eight-tube capacity...

The outlook for CMS competitive bidding: Part II.(Washington report)(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)
October 1, 2006... The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) required the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to conduct a demonstration program on using competitive bidding for clinical-laboratory services. The...