Media Coverage

When employers invest in a digital diabetes prevention program (DPP), they want to see measurable clinical results and high levels of engagement. Quest Diagnostics recently demonstrated both in a partnership with Omada Health, with 62% of the participants losing weight and the average employee completing more than 25 lessons over 9 months.1 The findings were presented at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) 79th Scientific Sessions.

At a time when clinicians are already increasingly switching to interferon-gamma release-based assays (IGRAs) for tuberculosis testing, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently warned of an anticipated shortage of a key antibody for tuberculin skin tests (TSTs) conducted in clinics. [CR-LF]Hema Kapoor, medical director of infectious diseases and immunology at Quest Diagnostics, said in an interview that while the response to the current announcement will depend on how clinicians react to it, over the years she has seen continuing growth for IGRA testing, supported by guidelines that have recommended blood-based TB testing over skin testing for certain populations.

On the 25th June, Q2 released details of its completed Proof of Concept for tracking biological samples using distributed ledger technology (DLT). The project, with enterprise blockchain firm R3 and medical tech company HSBlox, involved a simulation of the entire process; collecting, transporting, testing, and storing the sample.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Q2, a joint venture of IQVIA and Quest Diagnostics to provide services to clinical trial labs, conducted the effort. Atlanta based HSBlox developed the patent-pending Digital Sample Manager for the project, which runs on R3’s Corda blockchain and Microsoft’s Azure.

On Jan. 1, Illinois became the 11th state to allow recreational marijuana sales. But despite its increasing availability in the U.S., laws to protect cannabis-using job seekers are still uncommon.[CR-LF][CR-LF]That’s changing in Nevada, which legalized recreational use of pot in 2017, and now bans employers from denying jobs to applicants who test positive for marijuana on a pre-employment drug test — excluding jobs with safety issues, like fire fighters or other emergency responders.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Such protections aren’t available in California, where recreational use has been legal since 2016 and medical use has been legal for more than two decades. That’s made finding work difficult for 20-year old Layla Larson, who said she uses cannabis daily to manage her epilepsy and anxiety.