HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Revolution in Blood Lab Work

Support Forums
>
Crohn's Disease
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 7/2/2014 6:14 PM (GMT 0)
As the entrepreneur who started Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes has all the vision of Steve Jobs but I believe more technical ability with dozens of patents under her name. And she is all of 29 years old.

fortune.com/2014/06/12/theranos-blood-holmes/
Theranos.. offers more than 200–and is ramping up to offer more than 1,000–of the most commonly ordered blood diagnostic tests, all without the need for a syringe.

Theranos’s tests can be performed on just a few drops of blood, or about 1/100th to 1/1,000th of the amount that would ordinarily be required–an extraordinary potential boon to frequently tested hospital patients or cancer victims, the elderly, infants, children, the obese, those on anticoagulants, or simply anyone with an aversion to blood draws... (To me, it felt more like a tap than a puncture.)

The fact that Theranos’s technology uses such microscopic amounts of blood should eventually allow physicians far greater latitude when ordering so-called reflex tests than they have previously enjoyed. With reflex testing, the physician specifies that if a certain test comes up abnormal, the lab should immediately perform follow-up tests on the same sample to pinpoint the cause of the abnormality. Reflex testing saves patients the time, inconvenience, cost, and pain of return doctor visits and additional blood draws.

The results of Theranos’s tests are available within hours–often matching the speed of emergency “stat” labs today, though stat labs, which are highly inefficient, can usually perform only a limited menu of maybe 40 tests.

Most important, Theranos tests cost less. Its prices are often a half to a quarter of what independent labs charge, and a quarter to a 10th of what hospital labs bill, with still greater savings for expensive procedures. Such pricing represents a potential godsend for the uninsured, the insured with high deductibles, insurers, and taxpayers.
Posted 7/2/2014 7:41 PM (GMT 0)
The above information is very interesting however, this excerpt is straight from the magazine and each person interested  should  read the whole article to understand how close to making this technology available to the majority of the public this company seems to be.

The most frequent criticism is that Theranos is using purportedly breakthrough technology to perform tests that are relied on for life-and-death decisions without having first published any validation studies in peer-review journals.

 

Wouldn't it be nice not to have someone poke needles in you but instead just stick  your finger?

 

Thanks for posting this link.

Posted 7/2/2014 10:45 PM (GMT 0)
Thank you.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply