CurranOne of my pet projects since joining CLP about a year ago has been to gather together thought-leaders in the lab industry to form an editorial advisory board. So I’m proud to announce that the names, titles and contact information for our first editorial advisory board members are listed on the masthead below!

Since the primary role of an editorial advisory board member is to act as a representative for CLP readers, it’s only fair to tell you about them. With this group, the old adage definitely applies: If you want something done, ask a busy person.

Kathy Nucifora has 20 years of lab experience. Twelve of those years have been spent at the 60-physician, multi-specialty Hutchinson (Kan.) Clinic, where she has been manager for eight years. Hutchinson, the third largest clinic in Kansas, draws from about a 100-mile radius and is currently in the midst of a construction project which will double its size. Kathy is a member of the CLMA National Program Committee, teaches phlebotomy at a local community college and worked for the health fair booths at both the Democratic and Republican national conventions. In her spare time she is pursuing a master’s degree in public health.

Ron Blum has a dozen year of lab experience, four of those with Specialty Labs of Santa Monica, Calif., one of the world’s largest esoteric and specialty testing reference laboratories. Prior to that, Ron worked for a biotech company that cultured skin grafts for burn patients. His six years of graduate school work focused on cell culture and wound healing. Ron keeps up with the latest developments in the lab industry by attending about 10 conferences a year. His areas of specialty include infectious disease, gastroenterology and immunology. In his spare time, Ron, who has already sold one screenplay to Disney, is writing another.

Brian Porras is the technology assessment specialist who covers the clinical laboratory for Premier’s 1,800 hospitals. He has been with the GPO for eight years and in technology assessment for three. Brian holds undergraduate degrees in electrical and biomedical engineering from Duke and a master’s degree in biomedical engineering.

Karen Huffman has 30 years of lab experience, 14 of those in the lab at St. Mary’s, a 225-bed community hospital in Decatur, Ill. A manager for 10 years, Karen supervises 58 lab employees.

Rochelle Leemhuis, founder and principal of Lab Solutions in Anaheim Hills, Calif., has 20 years of laboratory experience. She started out working in a doctor’s office and then moved on to Long Beach Memorial, a teaching hospital, and then to a large HMO where she became associate director of the laboratory. While she was there, she helped develop an internal reference lab that saved the organization $3 million over three years. She eased into consulting on a part-time basis, but has been doing it full-time since 1986 and now employs eight people. Lab Solutions helps healthcare firms with regulatory issues, compliance, quality reviews, credentialing, risk management and utilization review. “Basically, if it’s an acronym, we do it,” Rochelle says.

George Krempel, administrative director of anatomical and clinical pathology at the Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill., has 25-plus years of laboratory experience. CLP readers may recognize his name because he and two other laboratorians from Loyola wrote a Lab Economics article, “NCCLS guideline adds to productivity, subtracts costs,” for our April issue.

A hearty welcome to all advisory board members! I look forward to seeing your bylines and getting your input on future articles.

Since this is the space where I get to wag my rhetorical finger at others for their snafus (i.e. certain professional organizations that refuse to merge, why isn’t there enough funding for infectious disease research and sleuthing), it’s only fair to mention mine too. First, on the cover of the September issue, we combined two separate briefs about two separate LifeScan products into one. Both products are clearly and distinctly described this month inside the pages of our Technology Focus section.

Second, as Thomas H. Kowalski, M.D., notes in the letter above, I confused the fair city of Milwaukee with the fair city of Chicago in last month’s column. My apologies.

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Coleen Curran
Editor