Under the white coat
This is a story that I didn’t notice when it happened. Beckman Coulter has bought Olympus Diagnostics. Further coverage can be found here, here, here and from Beckman Coulter here. Seems the story broke in Feburary. Shows that my finger isn’t on the pulse!!!
This story appeared in www.medicalnewstoday.com
It is always good to see companies promoting health before their bottom line. Africa and other developing countries can’t afford Western prices for vital drugs to combat HIV and other illnesses.
For more information about Roche and HIV you can try this link
or type in this address:
http://www.roche-hiv.com
A while ago, I attended an Abbott Learn and Earn day on Cardiac Markers. The day was very well organized and contained some very useful information. The highlight of day was a talk from a cardiologist about the use of cardiac markers etc from a medical point of view. It was a surprise to learn that shared a common view that doctors are requesting tests without any need, that a proper clinical history is taking second place to a comprehensive set of blood tests.
I have tried to have a look around the Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics site for training content. I have found this training section. This contains material for the American market but is still broadly applicable to Europe.
The material is well presented but there isn’t much of it. The Vitros 950 is summed up in five pages which are basically powerpoint slides. For a trainee this could be a very good primer but may still leave them wanting a bit more technical detail. This detail is available via “hidden” slides. Numerous slides contain links for more detailed information but these slides are hidden from the outline and there seems to be no way of downloading the content for off-line browsing.
I realised the other day that I have forgotten to include the Vitros and Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics in my Industry round up. So I have taken a look around. First impressions are not good.
The main site is http://www.orthoclinical.com/ which then asks for your location. Fair enough. So I then go the UK link, noticing that quite a few countries don’t have native language sites e.g. Greece, Denmark, Scandinavia. When I arrive at the destination of the UK link, I see a little flag waving in the corner to reinforce the fact that I have reached the UK site.
I have been looking at various Roche sites. I wanted to have a look at their chemistry information, as the hospital I work in is about to start a rather large tender process.
Knowing Roche is a rather large company with numerous divisions, I headed straight for the diagnostics division which can be found here. I did like the approach of the site asking whether you are a patient etc to direct you to the appropriate site/subsection. I find this a far better navigation tool for a site for general public access as it leaves little room for misunderstaning. Read more…
This site was suggested as a good guide by a colleague. Having had a quick look, I have to agree. There are other guides available on their site e.g. tandem MS
I suppose these two webites are about as close as out profession gets to a trade magazine:
http://www.pathologyinpractice.com/
http://www.mlwmagazine.com/
Now I know that Abbot Diagnostics have been bought be GE (Report here) but I think it’s going to be a while before the name changes, if ever.
A colleague recently went on a training course sponsored by Abbot. It was for trainees and grade 1′s and covered a wide variety of information. In the process, she was told about this site:
http://www.abbottdiagnostics.co.uk/Science/
I will look into this a bit more and report back.
Thjis is the new name for anything provided by either DPC or Bayer, as Siemens have bought both companies. I think in the case of Bayer, they only bought the diagnostic division. The following is the link to the diagnostic section of their site.
http://diagnostics.siemens.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreCatalogDisplay~q_catalogId~e_-111~a_langId~e_-111~a_storeId~e_10001.htm (You may need to paste this link together)
I think the site needs a bit of a tidy, as it seems to take a far clicks to find things that could be accessible slightly quicker. Take for example TSH analysis on the Immulite, you click on products, then click on Immulite. It now goes the options of several different links, two of which might lead us to the technical information about TSH. Assay menu is just a list of tests, no links provided for their package inserts. If you choose Package Inserts, you then have to select the analyser again!
I think the major problem of this site is that it is the combination of two companies products i.e. Bayer and DPC. It may take require some time and effort on the part of Siemens to smooth out the rough edges.
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