NovoPath has introduced a customizable web portal for its NovoPath anatomic pathology laboratory information system (APLIS), helping customers efficiently comply with new rules requiring labs to provide direct patient access to reports.

The new feature enables patients with test results to log on to a web portal through a lab’s website and download the documents generated through NovoPath’s APLIS.

Recently announced by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the patient access regulations require laboratories to provide patients or their designated representatives access to completed test results without requiring their physician’s approval. The new rule also eliminates the exemption under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) that would have made it inapplicable to CLIA-certified or CLIA-exempt laboratories. Patients may also continue to obtain lab test reports from the ordering clinician.

“Web-based access to digital reports is one of the most efficient, economical, and secure means of providing pathology test results to the patient, should the lab and ordering physician care to do so,” comments Rick Callahan, vice president of sales and marketing for NovoPath. “While labs could spend their time and resources to mail or fax written documents, that process is much more time-consuming, with a greater risk of compromising patient privacy.”

NovoPath develops and markets software solutions for the anatomic pathology laboratory market segment, which includes local, regional, national, and in-house laboratories as well as community and university teaching hospitals and medical centers.

Callahan notes that NovoPath is committed to staying ahead of the technology curve by offering advanced new functionalities and features. “Given HIPAA’s emphasis on the patients’ right of access to their personal health information, the new HHS ruling was to be expected,” he says. “NovoPath developed this feature in anticipation of this ruling. Providing web access to reports is almost effortless. It’s one more way of keeping our lab customers running smoothly and efficiently.”