While it’s unlikely you will ever encounter a case of Ebola, it’s best to be prepared. The CDC has a health advisory page full of information, including specimen requirements for Ebola testing. The laboratory’s first step is to contact their state health department.
In February I wrote about the Department of Health and Human Services regulation that amends the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 in regards to reporting of patient results. The deadline for implementation is fast approaching–9/27/2014–and so I’m curious as to how prepared laboratories are for this change.
Is your lab ready? What sort of changes have you made, if any? And do you see this as a way for pathologists and laboratory professionals to become a bigger part of the healthcare team? Or is it simply going to make everyone’s life harder?
–Kelly Swails, MT(ASCP), is a laboratory professional, recovering microbiologist, and web editor for Lab Medicine.
Last week, I attended the American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC) conference in Chicago. I attended molecular diagnostics talks but also talks about quality improvement, the use of “big data,” and lab stewardship. I have an interest in QI as my AACC poster presentation last year was on lab interventions to reduce lab error frequency and I am also a resident on my hospital’s performance improvement committee.
So, what exactly is “big data?” It’s a word that we are hearing more often in the media these days. It’s also a term that is increasingly being used in our healthcare systems. In 2001, analyst Doug Laney defined “big data” as the “3 V’s: volume, velocity, and variety” so that’s as good a point as any to start deconstructing its meaning.
Volume refers to the enormous amounts of data that we can now generate and record due to the blazing advancement of technology. It also implies that traditional processing matters will not suffice and that innovative methods are necessary both to store and analyze this data. Velocity refers to the ability to stream data at speeds that most likely exceed our ability to analyze it completely in real-time without developing more technically advanced processors. And finally, variety refers to the multiple formats, both structured (eg – databases) and unstructured (eg – video), in which we can obtain this data.
I’m always amazed at the ability of the human mind to envision and create something new out of the void of presumed nothingness. Technology has always outstripped our ability to harness its complete potential. And the healthcare sector has usually been slower to adopt technology than other fields such as the business sector. I remember when EMR’s were first suggested and there was a lot of resistance (in med school, not that long ago, I still used paper patient charts). But now, healthcare players feel both pressure from external policy reforms and internal culture to capture and analyze “big data” in order to make patient care more cost-effective, safe, and evidence-based. And an increasing focus and scrutiny (and even compensation) on lab stewardship is a component of this movement.
I often find myself in the role of a “lab steward” during my CP calls. The majority of my calls involve discussing with, and sometimes, educating, referring physicians about the appropriateness of tests or blood products that they ordered…and not uncommonly, being perceived as the test/blood product “police” when I need to deny an order. But lab stewardship goes both ways. And these days, the amount of learning we need to keep up with to know how to be a good lab steward is prodigious, daunting, and sometimes, seemingly impossible.
So do you believe in this age of lab stewardship that it’s the job of the pathologist to collect and analyze “big [lab] data” and to employ the results to help ordering physicians to choose the right test at the right time for the right patient? Or is it a collaborative effort with ordering physicians? With patients? How do you foresee that the future practice of medicine needs to change from standards of practice currently?
-Betty Chung, DO, MPH, MA is a third year resident physician at Rutgers – Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.
There had been talk about it for some time. We even discussed the topic during the meeting of an ASCP committee that I served on previously. It’s the First-RISE. So, all of us senior residents know the RISE but this month, ASCP administered a slightly different test that is meant to test the new PGY-1 in their baseline knowledge compared to what is required for AP/CP training. Sometime next month, they will receive their test results just as we did our RISE scores this past spring.
I know that the First-RISE is not merely giving the RISE that we all know and love/hate to the first years…and that there are some topics on there that we just don’t see on our version of the RISE. But the idea is the same – to identify areas of strength versus weakness. Programs and residents can then take this information to devise personalized study plans or lists of topic areas to focus on more intently.
For those of you who are checklist people and/or disciplined studiers who stick to their “plans”, what is the best way to study? Do you think that First-RISE will assist program directors in helping to start off their first years on the right track? Do you think that First-RISE is meaningful?
-Betty Chung, DO, MPH, MA is a third year resident physician at Rutgers – Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.
The laboratory is often considered a separate entity from the healthcare team. We are the “black box” that provides information and so some equate us with the healthcare IT department. Instead of being isolated with our instruments and microscopes while we crank out data like a big computer, we should be an integrated member of the team and involved in patient care. Imagine the benefits to the patient if a laboratory professional were included in patient rounds. Questions such as: “Can we test for that? Is that test performed on-site? What kind of sample do they need?” would have immediate answers. Laboratory professionals could also provide guidance in test selection and differential diagnoses.
Laboratory professionals and pathologists should work toward this level of involvement. And it doesn’t need to start by leaping into the middle of someone’s rounds. It can start as simply as expanding on an answered question. For example: the transplant team requests a STAT tacrolimus level, but tacrolimus is only performed once a day by tandem MS. Asking to speak with the transplant about tacrolimus testing can actually open many doors. Not only does everyone on the team now understand how tacrolimus testing works, the session also introduces the laboratory professional to a variety of healthcare providers. These providers now have a face to put with a name and a laboratory contact to call in the future when new questions arise. This initial contact could lead to cooperative efforts on other fronts. A rope bridge has been started, and it can become a freeway. All that’s required is to recognize opportunities, and get the laboratory professionals out of the lab and into the healthcare team.
This increase in visibility could feasibly become vital to the survival of the laboratory in the future. As healthcare dollars shrink, it’s incredibly important that the public and our healthcare colleagues understand just how much of their care is predicated by information the laboratory provides. It’s our job as laboratory professionals to help them understand. The doctors of pharmacology (PharmDs) led the way with this type of paradigm shift; now it’s time for laboratory professionals to follow suit. The laboratory can become one of the many faces of medicine rather than its most hidden profession.
-Patti Jones PhD, DABCC, FACB, is the Clinical Director of the Chemistry and Metabolic Disease Laboratories at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, TX and a Professor of Pathology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
So, July 1st is fast approaching. It is that date each year when new residents officially start their employment. And for us senior residents, even though it may not be as momentous as our first, it still is the start of our next year of rotations and a great time for reflection. As I sit here amidst an apartment full of unpacked and half-packed boxes as I prepare to move cross-country to start my new residency, like many of the PGY-1’s, I’m reflecting on what I’ve learned, what I should’ve learned but haven’t yet, and the journey that is to come at my new residency.
First, I’d like to congratulate all the graduating seniors and fellows! You finally are on to the next phase, whether that means fellowship or employment. Most of you have put the dreaded beast of boards behind you and have reached a milestone that says you are assumed to be ready for practice with less supervision. Gone is the safety net of having your attending verify the cases but you are not completely on your own because you will still have more veteran physicians who can help you. I know that there is a lot of negativity, especially on the internet, about the current job market and decreasing reimbursement codes, but persevere. There are pathologists and advocacy organizations lobbying for our profession. It’s easy to become disillusioned but uncertainty about our future can also be looked at in a ‘glass half-full’ view – we can shape how that future evolves because nothing is set in stone as of yet. In my grassroots organizing experiences, I have seen the underdog aka ‘the little guy’ win but only when they believe that they can bring about change, mobilize and organize together with like-minded individuals, and fight for what they believe is right.
Next, I’d also like to congratulate the incoming PGY-1 again for surviving that beast we call med school. You should be very proud. I know you are probably moving cross-country now and excited about what is to come. There’s a lot to learn but it’s a great time for you. My guess is that most of you will start with an introductory surgical rotation, although I do have some friends who are starting with a CP rotation. Either way, you have probably started your orientation and/or ‘boot camp’ so you can get acquainted with your hospital’s medical record system, dictation system, and pathology basics. Although I know that some of you won’t get a boot camp and will start on rotation immediately after orientation. Don’t despair…every first year in your program with you is in the same boat. And even if some people start off ahead of others on the learning curve, what I’ve seen is that by the end of first year, most people are caught up and at the same place. The thing that may set others apart is more the effort that they put in once residency starts.
So, what is essential during residency, not just for newbies but for all of us? Here’s some surgpath advice that can also apply to other rotations:
Above all, put the patient first and stay positive!
–Betty Chung, DO, MPH, MA is a second year resident physician at the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System in Chicago, IL.
Do you follow the Pathology Student blog and website? If not, consider doing so. Recently I stumbled onto this case study. The other case studies are great, too, and there are a lot of great explanations of diseases and laboratory tests.
I recently read The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum, a book about poison and forensic investigation in Jazz-age New York City. Dr. Norris and Dr. Gettler transformed death investigation from a good-old-boy coroner system to one based on science and data analysis. Blum weaves several cases into a narrative that covers several poisons used during the 1920s and ‘30s. Over time, poisoning deaths decreased due to public awareness as well as the realization that murderers were increasingly likely to get caught. Blum discusses Prohibition at length and its contribution to poisoning deaths in New York City. I found this particularly fascinating; not only were people willing to risk their lives to drink alcohol, the government tried to dissuade people from drinking by actively poisoning the supply.
Several of the reviews of this book note Blum’s lack of chemistry knowledge, and I can’t disagree. While my own knowledge base isn’t wide, even I notice a few inaccuracies (HCN isn’t a “potent” acid, for example). One must remember that Blum is a journalist, not a chemist; I tend place blame on the publisher’s fact-checker as well as the author. Because this book is about the evolution of the public perception of forensic toxicology and not just the science behind it, I could overlook the scientific stumbles.
As a laboratory professional, I loved reading about the early days of forensic science and forensic toxicology. While these professions existed in Europe well before 1920, Norris and Gettler forever changed how we treat death, murder, and justice in this country.
–Kelly Swails, MT(ASCP), is a laboratory professional, recovering microbiologist, and web editor for Lab Medicine.
I’m used to being surrounded by people who are passionate about transforming systems. I’ve spent many years involved in organizing grassroots movements, health advocacy, and health equity campaigns in the minority and immigrant communities. And the year before I started residency, I studied for a masters degree in public health where I focused on these same issues, along with more scientific training in molecular and infectious disease epidemiology. But as a resident, I have had to make some tough choices.
Even though I am back in Chicago where I attended college and first got involved working with minority and immigrant health issues, my community organizing, for now, will take a back seat to my education and service duties. And even though I sometimes reminisce about and miss the electrifying momentum involved in pushing toward such social change, I know that once I’m finished my training that I can return to contributing to these movements again on a more personal level. So I’m fine with the decisions I’ve had to make. We all have to make choices about what is most important at that specific time in our lives.
And so as a resident, I’ve focused my thoughts and efforts on how to create a movement within pathology to question our role on the clinical patient care team and to engage those in our profession to respond to this question – reasons why I got more involved with ASCP and CAP. With the gradual implementation of portions of the ACA since 2008 that is now moving into a more palpable phase, pathologists, tech staff, and residents have an opportunity to show our worth to the health care team. We have the opportunity to show that we are the experts in data interpretation and that in terms of more complicated testing such as flow cytometry, cytogenetics, or molecular tests, that the pathologist would be the best person to order the most appropriate tests.
No one knows better that we do what are the costs, indications, and limits of specific tests and despite what non-pathologists may think, we were trained just as they were in how to work up a patient and differential diagnosis. So who better to choose the right test for the right patient at the right time? I know that pathologists have the reputation of being not the most vocal or interactive doctors so how do we engage not just our leaders but also pathologists in general to take more ownership of patient care decisions and to speak up? How do we train our next generation to also see this as the big picture?
In grassroots organizing, strategy requires an understanding of the power dynamics and forces involved in decision making within the system one wants to change. So what drives pathologists and pathologists-in-training and how do we light a fire within our profession not to waste this opportunity that has been provided by health care reform to redefine our role within the patient care team? How do we nurture true patient advocates? I’ve been a little frustrated with these thoughts lately so please leave a comment with suggestions on how you think that we can accomplish these goals.
–Betty Chung, DO, MPH, MA is a second year resident physician at the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System in Chicago, IL.
I find that in interactions with other specialties, even attending physicians who far surpass me in age, that many have very little idea of what pathologists do. Those who do not work closely with pathologists are the first to mention CSI, forensics, autopsies, and an office in a windowless basement morgue. In fact, I recently heard the story that when a group of attendings and residents from another specialty along with their medical students were told to meet a pathologist for a teaching session in the anatomic pathology department…that they waited outside the locked morgue door before realizing that no one was there and that the morgue was not probably not the intended meeting location.
And for those who work more closely with pathologists, there exists a spectrum of attitudes and perceptions about our profession. We have surgeons who were trained “old school” style with six months of surgical pathology during residency who will sit at the multi-headed scope during intra-operative consultations and who know more than beginning junior residents. Hematology/oncology physicians often stop by hematopathology to look over slides together or to discuss a case. And then there are those who think that pathologists exist to provide them only with diagnoses and who do not look at us as equal members of the patient care team. I’ve heard some even question a diagnosis without ever seeing the slide and others grumble or joke that pathologists take too long to render diagnoses.
I’ve more than a few times had to call attendings, residents, or fellows to recommend canceling an inappropriately ordered test or less commonly, to suggest ordering an indicated one. I found that this more often occurs when there is not a strong differential of diagnoses. Even so, I still have the person on the other end of the line bellowing at me that they just MUST have this expensive molecular test ASAP.
Recently, a medical student who is interested in pathology told me that some residents from a non-pathology rotation harassed and made fun of this student for choosing pathology as their future career. I could continue with more examples but instead I ask this question, “Why is pathology as a field not valued?” especially with respect to specialties like surgery where there is a heavy reliance on pathologists to provide them with diagnoses?
I believe part of the reason lies in lack of exposure to the practical and daily aspects of pathology as a legitimate medical field during medical school. Furthermore, those who chose pathology as a career are often not personality types who proactively engage in promoting or advocating on behalf of the profession, especially at the state and federal levels. We also subconsciously contribute to this issue. For example, we often refer to all non-pathologists as “clinicians” as if there is a difference between these types of doctors and pathologists even though we all completed four years of medical school.
So, what are other reasons do you think contribute to the undervaluing of pathology as a profession, and more importantly, what can we do to change these stereotypes and misconceptions? Let me know by leaving a comment.
-Betty Chung
Lablogatory 