Theranos is a controversial health technology company that had provided medical diagnostic testing to consumers through the convenience of Theranos’ valuable partnership with Walgreens, and a unique vision of changing the healthcare industry. Theranos’ unique vision was to provide accurate and fast results in order to stop the onset of asymptomatic diseases (Rago 2013). Their key value proposition is aimed at proliferating the speed and accuracy of these diagnostic tests through automations which will limit human error and eliminate the need for multiple lab tests. Theranos primarily sought to perform these “accurate” tests with only trace amounts of blood from patients (Rago 2013). However, Theranos was not able to produce accurate results …show more content…
Although Theranos originally had good intentions and visionary goals of providing increased accessibility of testing to consumers, they were ultimately unsuccessful due to the inaccuracies of their test procedure, invalidating their other value propositions. Theranos’ visionary goal was to provide easier accessibility of testing for patients through their partnership with Walgreens. Theranos’ vision allowed them to capitalize on the growing retail clinic trends. The advantages of retail clinics and testing in pharmacies allow the convenience of patients with minor medical conditions to access patient care during inconvenient times, and as a result become increasingly popular (Dalen 2016). Retail clinics treat a range of acute conditions by PAs and NPs where only less than 5% of patients have conditions that fall beyond their scope (Dalen 2016). Theranos is taking the business model of retail clinics but applying it to in vitro testing. Theranos was highly successful in their goal of promoting the convenience of accessibility to tests for patients. However, due to the many controversies surrounding Theranos including the inaccuracies of tests, Walgreens eventually terminated …show more content…
This dilution process may potentially cause an underestimation of the test results leading to potential error. Theranos diagnostic testing was assessed when sixty individuals participated in a cohort, comparative study where Theranos finger pricking blood test was compared to a venipuncture blood draw testing biological molecule levels and different blood cell counts to a normalized reference range (Kidd et al. 2016). Figure 1 shows all of the results from Theranos that tested outside of its reference range from the 60 participants. Theranos was 1.6 times more likely to test outside of its normal reference range compared to other diagnostic testing laboratories in areas such as 5% out of range difference in RBC counts and lipid molecules including 10% difference for LDL and 40% difference for HDL (Kidd et al. 2016). These discrepancies demonstrate that there are high variability in Theranos sample collection and procedural data collection analysis which inhibits the usefulness of their automated systems limiting human error, speedy test results, and low test costs. The value in diagnostic testing revolves around the actual
This paper draws on primary source information provided by 2014 Walgreens Annual Report, 2013-2014 Alliance Boots Annual Report, 2014 CVS Annual Report, and published prescription reimbursement rates of England, France, and Germany. Additionally there is secondary source material. As the first firm to ever state that their firm’s definition is that they are the first global pharmacy-led, health, and wellbeing Corporation, the literature review on the subject is not even present. Thus this literature review is of the inputs that comprise how can Walgreens Boots Alliance make the global healthcare delivery model profitable?
P3 – Describe the investigations that are carried out to enable the diagnosis of these physiological disorders
...h the disease. Doctors or patients should not use that as an excuse to go through with PAS. Kaveny says, “…they have argued that PAS would be just the first step down a slippery slope” (1), which is very true because the faults that will come along with PAS will eventually cause the downfall of our health system. It will do that mainly because how could anyone trust a doctor that gives up so easily.
Health Care workers are constantly faced with legal and ethical issues every day during the course of their work. It is important that the health care workers have a clear understanding of these legal and ethical issues that they will face (1). In the case study analysed key legal and ethical issues arise during the initial decision-making of the incident, when the second ambulance crew arrived, throughout the treatment and during the transfer of patient to the hospital. The ethical issues in this case can be described as what the paramedic believes is the right thing to do for the patient and the legal issues control what the law describes that the paramedic should do in this situation (2, 3). It is therefore important that paramedics also
The cost of Medical equipment plays a significant role in the delivery of health care. The clinical engineering at Victoria Hospital is an important branch of the hospital team management that are working to strategies ways to improve quality of service and lower cost repairs of equipments. The team members from Biomedical and maintenance engineering’s roles are to ensure utilization of quality equipments such as endoscope and minimize length of repair time. All these issues are a major influence in the hospital’s project cost. For example, Victory hospital, which is located in Canada, is in the process of evaluating different options to decrease cost of its endoscope repair. This equipment is use in the endoscopy department for gastroenterological and surgical procedures. In 1993, 2,500 cases where approximately performed and extensive maintenance of the equipment where needed before and after each of those cases. Despite the appropriate care of the scope, repair requirement where still needed. The total cost of repair that year was $60,000 and the repair services where done by an original equipment manufacturers in Ontario.
RESPONSE: There are alternatives methods to replace animal testing and the technology for it will advance and continues to do so. The glass vasculature model, used to study fluid dynamics in cardiovascular studies, is a compact step in the right direction. Hopefully, a time will come when scientists do not have to use animals for scientific purposes. Other methods for curing Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, sickle cell disease, stroke, spinal cord damage and etc will develop. (74 words)
There has been a shortage of physicians, lack of inpatient beds, problems with ambulatory services, as well as not having proper methods of dealing with patient overflow, all in the past 10 years (Cummings & francescutti, 2006, p.101). The area of concern that have been worse...
The healthcare industry, as a whole, has made great strides towards improving access to he...
trials of investigation medical products. The FDA also has to review and approve in a
Potter, J. E., White, K., Hopkins, K., Amastae, J., & Grossman, D. (2010). Clinic Versus Over-
Yates K. M., & Creech Tart. (2012). Acute care patient falls: evaluation of a revised fall
Page-Reeves, J., Niforatos, J., Mishra, S., Regino, L., Gingrich, A., & Bulten, J. (2011). Health
At Mayo Clinic, the organization is driven by the needs of the patient and providing an unparalleled experience through integrated clinical practice, research and education for all patients. Analyzing the strategic plan for Mayo Clinic and identifying and summarizing long-term and short-term plans helps to develop an outlook for the future. “US News & World Report ranked Mayo Clinic as one of the 21 “Best Hospitals” in the United States in 2009” (Jones, 2010, p. 52.), and has been on this list for last 20 y...
When asked to state the primary goal of his business, Dr. Slez cited “high quality health care service” as the firm’s main objective. The effective treatment of, and development of trust with, the practice’s patients, Dr. Slez continued, takes precedence over profits. Indeed, if all healthcare firms placed profits above patient care (and many do) we would be far worse off. While doing what is needed to stop the spread of a disease or alleviate pain may not always be the most cost effective approach, it is the approach demanded by the government and general public. This is not to say that Dr. Slez’s firm does not try to maximize profit. The f...
Mayo Clinic is a hospital that is as well-known by many to be a haven of caring and concerned doctors whos’ sole focus is to give their patients the type of care they would want their families to receive if they were patients. According to Colquitt, LePine, and Wesson (Mayo Case Study, 2014), Mayo Clinic has established a customer service, patient first culture that puts the needs of those whom they serve ahead of other focuses, such as profit or patient quotas. This corporate culture has lead the hospital to become one of the most successful and iconic medical centers in the United States. Colquitt, LePine, and Wesson (Mayo Case Study, 2014) propose several very interesting questions at the end of the reading that they ask readers to ponder.