CENTRAL NEW YORK CHAPTER

CLINICAL LABORATORY MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION

Quarterly Meeting, June 3

You and your associates are cordially invited to the June quarterly meeting of the Central New York Chapter of CLMA. These meetings are open to members and non-members. If you are unable to attend, please feel free to send a co-worker. If you ARE able to attend, consider bringing along a co-worker. All are welcome.

The meeting will be held at the Embassy Suites Hotel, 6646 Old Collamer Road, East Syracuse, NY 13057, from 9:30 until 2 PM. The educational program will be "Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR): a view from both sides of the requisition" and will be presented by Salil Gupta, MD, Nephrology Hypertension Associates of CNY, and Sue Rauer, BS MT(ASCP), Supervisor of Chemistry, Laboratory Alliance of CNY. Industry Updates will be provided on such topics as NYS Licensure, the Blood Bank Association of New York State's Annual Meeting, and a preview of plans for the CLMA/AACC annual meeting in November.

For additional information and a registration form, please log onto our chapter web site www.cnyclma.com and click on "What's New.”

Dade Days 2005 a Big Hit in Albany and Westford MA

Record crowds attended this year’s Dade Days in Albany and Westford. This one-day conference included 18 lectures on a variety of topics including clinical chemistry, coagulation, hematology, automation and quality control. The program included several well-known speakers including Donna Castellone and David Plaut. Nationally acclaimed motivator, educator and humorist Steve Sobel, Ph.D. gave the keynote address.

One of the best features of this workshop is that it was provided to Dade customers at no cost. With the ever shrinking budgets, as well as the general lack of workshops in our area, these workshops were a treat as demonstrated by the large number of attendees.

I have been told that Dade is planning to hold a similar conference in Central New York soon. I’m sure your Dade rep will let you know the details once they have become finalized.

Hemolysis: Accept it or Reject it

This was the title of a workshop presented at the above-mentioned Dade Days by Anthony La Porta, MS, MT(ASCP), Technical Director, St. Joseph Medical Center, Towson, MD. Like many of us, his laboratory was getting a large number of hemolyzed specimens –especially from the emergency department. In fact 53% of their ED specimens were hemolyzed. Recent studies have shown that when blood is drawn from an IV catheter, a higher incidence of hemolysis occurs. One of these studies showed that approximately 85% of bloods collected through an IV were hemolyzed. Since it is common practice for the ED to collect bloods from an IV, this explains the high number of hemolyzed specimens. Other causes of hemolysis include improper handling of the specimen after collection, using a small bore needle, or vigorous shaking of the specimen after collection.

Finding the cause of the problem was the easy part; finding the solution is not so easy. Since hemolysis interferes with many lab tests, La Porta’s laboratory decided to reject all hemolyzed specimens as unacceptable. Of course, most of our labs do not have this option! What else can we do? The first step is to try to educate the clients who are hemolyzing the samples. Also, if you are not able to reject the specimens, you could put a disclaimer on the report that the specimen is hemolyzed and the results may not be accurate. La Port cautions against this approach since he claims that “the laboratory that performs a test on an unacceptable specimen is setting itself up for a potential lawsuit precisely because it has run the test.”

Please email me your thoughts or solutions to this problem, and I will include them in the next newsletter.

Future Chapter Meetings

Quarterly Meetings in Syracuse:

June 3, 2005

Embassy Suites, East Syracuse

Program: GFR, NYS Licensure, Blood Bank Update, Annual Meeting Preview

RSVP by June 1st

September 9, 2005

Empire Room, New York State Fairgrounds

Program: Benchmarking - A Valuable Tool For Improving Your Lab's Performance

Watch for meeting announcment in August

.

Annual CLMA/AACC Meeting

Turning Stone Casino Resort

November 3 & 4, 2005

Room reservations will be due by October 2, 2005

Watch for Conference Brochure in Mid August

2004 - 2005 Board of Directors

Name Office Term Work Phone E-mail address

Sue Graham President 03 – 05 315-464-5334 grahams@upstate.edu

Sunanda Sanyal Pres.Elect 03 - 05 315-338-7106 ssanyal@romehosp.org

Kathy Inglis Secretary 03 - 05 315-798-8439 kinglis@stemc.org

Rick DeFrancisco Treasurer 03 - 05 607-253-3259 rjd34@cornell.edu

Paul Engineri Past Pres. 03 - 05 315-

Rita Romano Director 04 - 06 315-452-2022 romanor@labcorp.com

Carol Barnett Director 04 - 06 315-464-3281 barnettc@upstate.edu

Tom Filiak Director 04– 06 315-255-7053 tfiliak@dreamscape.com

Mary Ferguson Director 03 - 05 315-488-3573 mary_ferguson@dadebehring.com

Sophia Lustrinelli Director 03 – 05 315-464-6842 lustrins@upstate.edu

Anthony J. Marra Director 04 - 05 315-785-4506 amarra@shsny.com

Committee Contacts

Committee Name Phone E-Mail

Education Committee Carol Barnett 315-464-3281 barnettc@upstate.edu

Bylaws / Nominations Tony Kurec 315-464-7139 kureca@upstate.edu

Legislative Committee Tony Kurec 315-464-7139 kureca@upstate.edu

Fund Raising Mary Ferguson 315-488-3573 mary_ferguson@dadebehring.com

Membership Rita Romano 315-452-2022 romanor@labcorp.com

Newsletter Jim Parsons 518-441-2798 jparsons@nycap.rr.com

Clinical Laboratory

Management Association

P.O. Box 35833

Syracuse, New York 13235