Media Coverage

Blockchain technology is currently known for keeping cryptocurrency transactions secure. With adaptations, it may soon be used to keep personal health information more safe and secure, as its name suggests, than ever before. The current model for storing data is by keeping said data stored in one place. For example, a Microsoft Word document is saved to a desktop. While access to that document may be made through the server, even remotely, it is still saved in a single, centralized location. Blockchain is, arguably, the exact opposite.Over the summer, UnitedHealthcare, Humana, Optum, Quest Diagnostics and MultiPlan launched a pilot program using blockchain technology to assist payers in tackling mandated provider directories. The program utilizes the technology to reduce costs associated with insurers updating demographic data from providers.

It’s been years since the tobacco industry promised to stop luring young people to smoke cigarettes. Philip Morris International says it is “designing a smoke-free future.” British American Tobacco, likewise, claims to be “transforming tobacco” into a safer product. But while the Food and Drug Administration weighs plans to cut nicotine in cigarettes, making them less addictive, Big Tobacco has been making the most of the time it still has using social networks to promote its brands around the world.

Tom Romeo, general manager of healthcare IT and Quanum Solutions at Quest Diagnostics, said hospitals and health systems must identify the cause of insurance claim denials to ensure proper and timely payment. "Identify the source of denials through reports and discussions with staff, and then prioritize fixing the problem," he told Becker's Hospital Review. "Train staff about these issues and review top denials regularly in meetings with physicians. It's critical to recognize the contribution of every employee in the denial-management process."

As more women put off starting families and U.S. fertility rates drop, helping women assess how much time, and how many eggs, they have left to conceive is a growing business. The market for ovulation tests, fertility monitors and other mail-in home tests to help women up their odds of bearing fruit is exploding. Several startups are selling kits that allow women to test their fertility at home with a simple finger prick. Modern Fertility allows women to send a blood sample drawn by pricking a finger or having blood drawn at a lab and tested at Quest Diagnostics. The at-home test is mailed back and then screened.

A group of newborn infants with genetic disorders that went undetected in standard testing will receive genomic sequencing in a clinical study of its safety and feasibility. The study is led by a team at Tufts University Medical Center in Boston, and conducted at another 5 sites in the U.S., supported by a 5-year, $8 million grant from National Center for Advancing Translational Science, or NCATS, part of National Institutes of Health. The trial is recruiting 400 newborns with potential genetic disorders that were not detected in standard screenings. The infants will receive whole genomic sequencing, as well as targeted genomic tests for 1,722 inherited disorders known to affect newborns, developed with Quest Diagnostics, a nationwide network of medical labs.

Earlier this year, five prominent healthcare organizations—Humana, MultiPlan, Quest Diagnostics, and UnitedHealth Group’s Optum and UnitedHealthcare—announced they would be launching a blockchain-based pilot program with the aim to improve healthcare data quality and reduce administrative costs.

An emerging bacterial threat, mycoplasma genitalium, that can be passed through sex is making some headlines across the pond as the British Association of Sexual Health and HIV recently drafted guidance aimed at better detecting and treating it. Commercial labs such as Quest Diagnostics offer a test for this STD.

The threat of Lyme disease has spread to all 50 states. Quest Diagnostics analyzed 6 million blood samples and found the tick-borne disease is now in 100 percent of the country. The most cases were in Pennsylvania, but the disease is also becoming more common in places like Florida and California.

The proportion of workplace drug tests detecting the use of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine is up sharply, from 3.2 percent in 2012 to 4.2 percent, according to Quest Diagnostics. With the Trump economy producing more jobs than applicants, some companies are simply dropping pot from their routine pre-employment drug screening. “Employers are saying, ‘We have a thin labor pool,’” employment lawyer James Reidy tells the Associated Press. “So are we going to test and exclude a whole group of people?”

Lyme disease is now in all 50 states and the number of cases is rising, according to a report from clinical laboratory Quest Diagnostics. The tick-borne illness, historically found mostly in the Northeast, is now growing rapidly in California and Florida, where it was not usually found in the past, according to a report from clinical laboratory Quest Diagnostics.