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Tapping its massive sample of over 10 million employee drug tests across the country, Quest Diagnostics said it's identified the industries in which the most workers test positive for drugs.

Palm Harbor, one of WhiteSands’ drug and alcohol rehabilitation facilities in Palm Harbor, FL, is happy to offer its services to patients with addiction problems. The company helps those with drug and alcohol addiction issues to get help and back on the road to recovery. Drug addiction is increasing according to Quest Diagnostics, one of the nation’s leading providers of employee drug testing when they reported that in September of 2015 the percentage of employees testing positive for drugs had reached a 10-year high.

These days, cannabidiol, or CBD, which is the non-inebriating compound in marijuana, is being used for pain, anxiety, and as a sleep aid. Also, the FDA recently approved its use for seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome and Dravet Syndrome, which are severe forms of epilepsy. At Quest Diagnostics, one of the biggest drug testing companies in the United States, they don’t offer testing for CBD and it’s not part of any employer drug testing program, says Barry Sample, director of science and technology for employer solutions at the company. Even people who are being drug tested for the DEA are not tested for CBD; in fact, federal employees can only be drug tested for certain predetermined compounds, and CBD isn’t one of them.

Aetna, a CVS Health business, and Ascension have joined the pilot project applying blockchain technology to improve data quality and reduce administrative costs associated with changes to health care provider demographic data. Humana, MultiPlan, Quest Diagnostics and UnitedHealth Groups Optum and UnitedHealthcare announced the launch of the Synaptic Health Alliance pilot project in April.

Protocol Testing is certified to perform individual, forensic and federally regulated drug and alcohol testing in their offices or at a place of business. Protocol performs urine, hair, nail, and alcohol testing (EtG and Breath) for: pre-employment, post-accident, reasonable suspicion, random, return to duty, follow-up, court ordered, students, probation and workers comp. We are also certified for Paternal DNA Testing. Rick told the group they use a variety of labs used for analysis which include Quest, Labcorp, Expertox, and USDTL.

Although it is crucial to identify tick-borne diseases, including Lyme, early, many tests can be inaccurate or difficult to interpret. Chromacode Inc., of Carlsbad, Calif., is looking to help change that. The company reported the commercial launch of its first multiplex test using its High Definition Polymerase Chain Reaction (HDPCR) technology. Chromacode said the HDPCR Tick-Borne Pathogen (TBP) panel is the only multiplex PCR test that detects nine of the most common tick-borne pathogens in a single test. This past summer, Quest Diagnostics Inc. helped put that in perspective after looking at more than 6 million de-identified laboratory test results over the past seven years and determining that the disease spiked between 2016 and 2017.

Workplace drug testing was jump-started by President Reagan’s 1986 executive order mandating it for federal employees. In 1988, Congress passed The Drug-Free Workplace Act (41 U.S.C. 81). This law requires some Federal contractors and all Federal grantees to agree that they will provide drug-free workplaces as a precondition of receiving a contract or grant from a Federal agency. Over 9.5 million urine drug tests were positive in the U.S. workforce in 2015. The rates increased to 4% of workers tested in 2015 versus 3.9% the year before, per Quest Diagnostics.

On Dec 5, we issued an updated research report on Quest Diagnostics, Inc.. The stock carries a Zacks Rank #3. Over the past three months, shares of this major commercial laboratory services provider have outperformed its industry. The stock has declined 18% compared with the industry’s 19.9% fall.

he boom of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies have inspired healthcare organizations to test the capabilities of their data. Quest Diagnostics, in partnership with Humana, MultiPlan, and UnitedHealth Group’s Optum and UnitedHealthcare, have launched a pilot program that applies blockchain technology to improve data quality and reduce administrative costs associated with changes to healthcare provider demographic data.

Quest Diagnostics recently announced it will contribute biomarker implementation, population health analytics and a national lab platform as a pillar supporter of One Brave Idea, the research initiative cofounded by the American Heart Association (AHA) and Verily Life Sciences with significant support from AstraZeneca. The company said it hopes to advance the work to identify coronary heart disease at the earliest transition from wellness to disease.