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The laws about marijuana in Wisconsin aren't changing. But recent legalization of recreational marijuana in neighboring states and shifting societal norms are causing employers to rethink how to treat cannabis use. [CR-LF][CR-LF]Calls to MRA's human resources hotline about workplace drug testing increased in recent months. Employers are asking just how exactly the changing tides will affect them. [CR-LF][CR-LF]The laboratories that carry out employer-based drug testing, such as Quest Diagnostics, do not see evidence that people are abandoning the practice, said Quest Diagnostics Director of Science and Technology Barry Sample.

Quest Diagnostics Incorporated announced today the pricing of a public offering of $800 million aggregate principal amount of its 2.950% senior notes due 2030 under the Quest Diagnostics' shelf registration statement.

North Carolina’s governor has announced that a clinical trial lab services provider will add 749 jobs at a new facility over the next few years.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Gov. Roy Cooper issued a statement Wednesday that Q Squared Solutions LLC will invest $73 million in the Durham-based facility that’s expected to grow over seven years.The company is described as a joint venture between IQVIA and Quest Diagnostics that offers laboratory services and biospecimen management among other services.

For blockchain to be successful in healthcare, it needs to scale. This is why collaborations have been created between major healthcare organizations to grow the technology.[CR-LF][CR-LF]In April 2018, five healthcare giants — Humana, MultiPlan, Quest Diagnostics, UnitedHealthcare Group and Optum, launched the Synaptic Health Alliance, a pilot program using blockchain to ensure health plan provider directors include up-to-date physician information.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Since then, St. Louis-based Ascension and Aetna have joined the project.

As the United States tries to wean off prescription opioids, physicians worry about the impact on chronic pain patients: Doctors are concerned that many chronic pain patients will turn to illicit drugs if they do not have access to prescription opioids, according to a new report from Quest Diagnostics. For the report, researchers polled 500 primary care physicians (PCPs) and analyzed 4.4 million lab test results.

Stewardship is defined as “the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care.” In health care, laboratory administrators are frontline stewards, providing quality, appropriate laboratory services to guide patient care. [CR-LF][CR-LF]But laboratory administrators are increasingly in charge of a different kind of stewardship—managing the cost of laboratory spend and achievement of financial incentives for meeting lab-based quality metrics. That’s because laboratory testing drives most health care decisions, with significant downstream consequences on patient outcomes and costs.

Robotic process automation (RPA), or bots that can be programmed to perform tedious and mundane tasks, is undergoing a period of explosive growth. Deloitte reports that 53% of companies have begun deploying it and that 78% of adopters will invest more in RPA in the next three years. In fact, assuming the current trend continues, it’s anticipated that RPA will achieve “near universal adoption” within five years.[CR-LF][CR-LF]One of the incumbents in the space is Automation Anywhere, which in the roughly 16 years since its founding has attracted over 3,500 customers in more than 90 countries, among them LinkedIn, MasterCard, Comcast, Hitachi, Stanley Black & Decker, IBM, Cisco, Symantic, Juniper Networks, Tesco, Unilever, Volkswagen, Whirlpool, Quest Diagnostics, Deloitte, Boston Scientific, Dell EMC, Accenture, Cognizent, Siemens, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the World Bank.

Among more than 100,000 patients enrolled in both commercial insurance and Medicare Advantage programs, researchers found that the annual percentage undergoing tapering doubled between 2008 and 2017.[CR-LF][CR-LF]In another recent survey, which was conducted by Quest Diagnostics and the Center on Addiction, more than four out of five doctors said they were reluctant to take on patients using prescribed opioids. They also said the opioid crisis made it more difficult to treat patients in pain.

Quest Diagnostics Incorporated provides diagnostic testing, information, and services in the United States and internationally. The company develops and delivers diagnostic testing information and services, such as routine testing, non-routine and advanced clinical testing, anatomic pathology testing, and other diagnostic information services.

Neither vitamin D nor marine omega-3 (n-3) fatty acid supplementation significantly reduces the rate of first heart failure hospitalization, according to a research letter published online Nov. 11 in Circulation to coincide with the annual meeting of the American Heart Association, held from Nov. 16 to 18 in Philadelphia.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Luc Djoussé, M.D., Sc.D., from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues examined the effects of vitamin D and n-3 supplements on the incidence of heart failure hospitalization in a large, multi-ethnic cohort with 25,871 adults; 36 participants with prevalent heart failure were excluded.[CR-LF]Two authors disclosed financial ties to Quest Diagnostics, which measured serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and serum omega-3 index at no cost; several pharmaceutical companies provided the study agents, matching placebos, and packaging.