colLABoration: The Orchard Software Blog

As a promised follow-up from our last blog post, 10 (Plus One) Healthcare Trends on the Lab’s Radar for 2020, one more topic deserves attention on our laboratory hot topic list: Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI has been a buzzworthy term for a while now, as we keep hearing it is the next big thing. So much hype has led us to be speculative about its tangible contributions. However, expect AI to continue gaining traction as we move into 2020 because practical applications for AI are on the rise.

The new year is coming in hot! Terms such as value-based care, that seemed vague and far-off just a few years ago, are now in full swing and are impacting laboratories across the nation. To kick off 2020, we have a list of trends that will likely continue to be on the laboratory’s radar in the upcoming year.

​Capturing data at the point of care is becoming even more important in value-based care. Below are two examples of improvements that have been made at healthcare facilities through the introduction of a POCT connectivity solution. Both facilities saved a significant amount of technologist time and labor costs, reduced the likelihood of manual errors, and now have their POCT data available for analytics.

In a recent Whitehat Communications webinar--POCT Coordination: Managing Your Sanity as Your Program Expands Beyond the Horizon—Dr. James H. Nichols discusses current point-of-care testing (POCT) market trends, the importance of quality management in POCT, and he offers tips on how to successfully manage your POCT program.

Healthcare’s shift to patient-centered, value-based care means that point-of-care testing (POCT) increases in value. When implemented in the correct patient scenarios, the rapid turnaround time (TAT) that POCT offers can improve patient outcomes and eliminate or reduce downstream costs. In order to achieve immediate access to those results and reap the benefits of POCT, the results must be readily available in the EHR—meaning POCT must be integrated to achieve its full potential.

The diversity of point-of-care testing (POCT) locations, devices, and operators makes its management and connectivity challenging. However, the greatest benefit of a POCT result is its rapid turnaround time (TAT). That TAT is not realized if the result is not immediately available to the provider or care team for action. Thus, connectivity is imperative to achieve the true benefit of rapid POCT.

In the right patient scenarios, the rapid turnaround time (TAT) that point-of-care testing (POCT) offers can increase provider efficiency and help improve patient outcomes. However, the diversity of locations, operators, devices, and device connectivity capabilities makes POCT challenging to manage and integrate. 

Direct Access Testing (DAT) or direct-to-consumer (DTC) testing has been around for some time and has largely been discouraged due to lack of provider involvement for test interpretation. However, with advances in genetic testing, patients now have the opportunity to easily send in a swab and receive a plethora of genetic test results. This process is relatively new territory in healthcare, thus raises privacy, ethical, and safety questions. 

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​As the contribution of point-of-care testing (POCT) continues to gain traction in response to value-based care, its oversight has proven to be complex and challenging. In order to gain the full benefit that POCT offers to improve patient outcomes, programs need to be well-managed and standardized across a healthcare organization (HCO). The knowledge base of laboratory professionals makes them well-suited to oversee POCT to ensure its quality, and simultaneously can increase their visibility and overall contribution to the care team.

Orchard Software received the 2019 Overall Top-Rated Laboratory Information System Vendor rating from Black Book Research with a score of 9.56 out of 10. Black Book is an unbiased, vendor-agnostic rating system that specializes in healthcare-related market research.