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Featured article of the week archive - 2014

Welcome to the LIMSwiki 2014 archive for the Featured Article of the Week.

Featured article of the week: May 5–11, 2014: A public health laboratory is a laboratory that serves regional, national, or in some cases global communities by providing clinical diagnostic testing, environmental testing, disease diagnosis and evaluation, emergency response support, applied research, regulation and standards recommendations, laboratory training, and other essential services to the communities they serve. A public health laboratory is unlike the average commercial laboratory as it functions as a core part of a broad public health system. The public health laboratory must typically meet more stringent requirements, including adhering to the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) (for labs in the United States) as well as regulations laid out by the departments, agencies, and other regulatory bodies of local, state, and/or national governments. Finally, the private medical laboratory focuses on tests that diagnose the diseases of individuals, while the functions of the public health laboratory serve entire populations. On a global level, the public health laboratory is influenced and supported by the the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL). In the U.S. they are influenced, overseen, and/or regulated by several federal agencies. (Full article...) Featured article of the week: May 12–18, 2014: An electronic health record (EHR) is an evolving concept, "defined as a longitudinal collection of electronic health information about individual patients and populations." It is a record in digital format that is theoretically capable of being shared across different health care settings. In some cases this sharing can occur by way of network-connected enterprise-wide information systems and other information networks or exchanges. EHRs may include a range of data, including demographics, medical history, medication and allergies, immunization status, laboratory test results, radiology images, vital signs, personal stats like age and weight, and billing information. The differences between an EHR and an electronic medical record (EMR) differ from entity to entity and from country to country. For example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) notes that despite the interchanging of the terms "EMR" and "EHR," it considers them two separate entities: the EMR came first, used primarily by medical clinicians for diagnosis and treatment, while the EHR came into existence as a more holistic, inclusive collection of a patient's health data. (Full article...)

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