in office lab tests, clia waived and what not--whats most helpful?

[Guest guest]

For those of you that don't know, I have a new job as med director of

a small new clinic in seattle. We are part of a larger system of

smaller clinics around the portland area, but the first in Seattle.

Hopefully we will have more!

We do draw blood in our office which we send out to lab corp for

processing. But the higher-ups have asked me lately about anything

that would be helpful to do in the office for quicker results.

This had lead to my prior question about d-dimer tests--which sadly

are not clia-waved--they are moderate complexity so it might not be

cheap to add the infrastructure to be able to do those tests.

But if you could have a few machines handy, what would be most helpful?

I would like an automatic urine analyzer since it would be faster and

more reliable than having our front desk people do the urine dips.

And that does not appear to be expensive at all. But certain reviews

have turned up some other equipment--a cbc machine that does a wbc

with a 3 part diff is cheaper than a 5 part diff.

The 3 part " t is inferior because it lumps together neutrophils,

eosinophils, and basophils " Obviously you would want

neutrophils....but when getting a wbc there can be so much variation I

would think there would be plenty of false positives anyway.

Does anyone have any experience in this and if so, what tests were helpful?

Given our patient population strongly considering rapid chlyamdia

tests or the like, since STD testing is very common. I try to refer

most to lower cost health department options but many would prefer

getting it done asap.