SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- ARUP Laboratories, a national esoteric reference laboratory and a leader in innovative laboratory research and development, announced today that it is enhancing its Suite of Integrated Services. ARUP Consult(TM), Version 1.0, The Physician’s Guide to Laboratory Test Selection and Interpretation, will offer health care providers across the nation a dynamic tool to provide instant, electronic, point-of-care access to laboratory testing information, help with test selection and decision making, and test interpretation for more than 750 laboratory tests.
This proprietary innovation, which is available in both Web and PDA platforms at no cost, will enable ARUP’s clients and their physicians/health care providers to more effectively serve their patients. ARUP Consult’s dynamic, cutting-edge design provides clinicians with background information, test ordering suggestions, and concise diagnostic advice, in an easy-to-use format which allows the user to browse by disease specialty or topic name. In addition to receiving guidance in ordering lab tests, users may also access interpretations of those results, allowing patient care to begin as soon as possible.
This pioneering method will improve patient safety and quality of care through positively influencing physician ordering behavior because it is meant to be used in a point-of-care setting. Additionally, ARUP Consult will reduce overall health care costs by helping physicians to order the most appropriate test the first time, eliminating unnecessary and costly testing.
“We are proud to be the first laboratory to offer this one-of-a-kind resource,” said ARUP’s Medical Director of Informatics, Brian Jackson, M.D., M.S., who heads the Consult project. “This user-friendly program offers browsing by disease, topics with algorithms, and by alphabetical topic list, as well as cross-references and applicable multi-disease categories. Consult’s recommendations are hyperlinked to national guidelines and current journal references relevant to practicing physicians.”
To develop Consult, ARUP drew from the knowledge of its nearly 70 medical faculty and consultants. These experts function as medical directors for ARUP Laboratories, professors at the University of Utah’s School of Medicine, consultants, and/or research and development authorities. ARUP employed external IT vendors in addition to internal specialists in order to create this proprietary software and to ensure that it interfaced successfully with the Web and PDA platforms through a central Content Management System (CMS). Content is derived from ARUP’s test menu, as well as the interpretive data and information previously included in ARUP’s Clinical Laboratory Testing Guide. This unique combination now provides clients a comprehensive database program that serves as an aid both proactively, to help health care providers order the correct test for a certain disease, and reactively in helping to interpret the results of that test correctly. If a health care provider requires further consultation, he or she may call ARUP and consult with one of its many medical experts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
ARUP will continuously update both versions of ARUP Consult in order to deliver the most accurate and up-to-date information available. Both the Web version, as well as a link to download the program onto a PDA, can be found online at www.arupconsult.com.
Consult’s implementation is a crucial part of ARUP’s newly unveiled Suite of Integrated Services, an assembly of tools and programs to streamline information flow and processes between ARUP Laboratories, its clients, and their physician clients. By integrating into clients’ operations, ARUP will ensure unprecedented value for clients by increasing revenue and reducing costs.
“Because ARUP’s primary mission is to improve patient care, we’ve made this project a top priority, as well as an integral piece of our Suite of Integrated Services,” said ARUP President and COO, Ronald L. Weiss, M.D., M.B.A. “ARUP believes that community health care is best for the patient if provided at the community level. In keeping with that philosophy, ARUP is offering a comprehensive suite of services that will enable our clients to have a positive impact on their local health community.”
Other services included in this revolutionary offering of services include:
ARUP Direct(TM), Your Total Outreach Solution(TM), which serves as an umbrella structure for ARUP’s outreach services. These services provide clients with comprehensive, start-to-finish critical services and skills necessary to compete in the local and regional marketplace -- regardless of the client’s size or stage of development. Using ARUP Direct, clients have the opportunity to establish business partnerships and access managed care contracts and other valuable outreach solutions including, consultative services, client business training, network management, and physician connectivity.
ARUP ATOP(R) (Analyzing Test Ordering Patterns) is a program to assist health care organizations in improving utilization of laboratory tests. ATOP discovers potential over-, under-, and mis-utilization of individual laboratory tests and in each case identifies the clinical and economic impact of suboptimal ordering. Laboratories and pathologists can share this information with local clinicians in order to reduce costs and improve patient care. ARUP’s ATOP program can assist clients in: providing utilization benchmarks for analysis and improvement; improving management of the send-out purchase process through data comparisons of “known issues"; improving management of test ordering by addressing physician ordering behaviors; creating cost of care evaluations; and, developing customized recommendations.
ARUP Connect(TM) is ARUP’s proprietary Internet sign-on process, an online service providing clients secure access to information about test requests, from order status to test results. ARUP Connect can assist clients with their own delivery of services, giving managers and client service departments up-to-the-minute information about tests referred to ARUP.
About ARUP Laboratories
ARUP Laboratories is a national clinical and anatomic pathology reference laboratory and an enterprise of the University of Utah and its Department of Pathology. With more than 1,800 employees, ARUP offers in excess of 2,000 tests and test combinations, ranging from routine screening tests to highly esoteric molecular and genetic assays, for patients throughout the country. Rather than competing with its clients for physician office business, ARUP chooses instead to support clients’ existing test menus by offering highly complex and unique tests, with accompanying consultative support, to enhance their abilities to provide local and regional laboratory services. ARUP’s clients include more than half of the nation’s university teaching hospitals and children’s hospitals, as well as multihospital groups, major commercial laboratories, group purchasing organizations, military and government facilities, and major clinics. In addition, ARUP is a worldwide leader in innovative laboratory research and development, led by the efforts of the ARUP Institute for Clinical and Experimental Pathology(TM).
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Visit ARUP Laboratories’ Web site at www.aruplab.com or access ARUP Consult directly and/or download it onto your PDA at www.arupconsult.com.
ARUP Laboratories
CONTACT: Ronald L. Weiss, M.D., M.B.A., President and Chief OperatingOfficer, +1-801-584-5188, or Brian Jackson, M.D., M.S., Medical Director,Informatics, +1-801-386-6640, or Cynthia Holden, Manager, IntegratedMarketing Communications, +1-801-386-6637, all of ARUP Laboratories
