All Medical Kidney Biopsies Performed In The Baptist Health System To Be Sent To Nephrocor®

Situation:  Historically, multiple reference laboratories have been used to provide complex diagnostic services for medical kidney biopsies performed in the Baptist Health System.  The use of multiple vendors for these diagnostic tests prevented the development of a streamlined and efficient process and timely reporting of these important patient results.

Background:  The Medical Director Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and BHS leadership have the final responsibility to ensure the quality of reference laboratories performing these studies and to establish vendor relationships with these laboratories per the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act.

Assessment:  A single provider contract relationship permits better management of quality, specimen tracking and reporting of results in the medical record.

Recommendation: All medical kidney biopsies performed in the Baptist Health System will be sent to the same reference laboratory determined by the Medical Director of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and BHS leadership.  At this time, the reference laboratory to be used is Nephrocor®.  The medical director of Nephrocor is a world-renowned expert in renal pathology, Dr. Guillermo Herrera.  Further information regarding his credentials may be obtained from Dr. Emily Volk, MD.

Some benefits for the BHS medical staff resulting from this decision are:

1. Nephrocor provides an on-line “WebDox” that allows physicians to view web based reports from any computer connected to the internet.
2. Nephrocor provides 24 hour turn-around with a phone call from the pathologist (if the nephrologist provide s a call-back number)
3. Dr. Herrara is well-known to the San Antonio medical community having done his fellowship with Dr. Banyan at Methodist; he is also the President of the International Renal Pathology Society.
4. Nephrocor has a proven track record of success with Northeast Baptist and North Central Baptist Hospitals.