Fast, Easy and Painless Blood Testing is coming to a Walgreens Theranos Wellness Center near You.
Thanks to a 30 year-old Stanford dropout named Elizabeth Holmes, consumers nationwide will soon, if not already, have access to fast, convenient and low cost blood testing at a Theranos™ Wellness Center in one of 8,200 neighborhood Walgreens’ pharmacies nationwide.
Proclaimed as the youngest self-made female billionaire, Holmes is revolutionizing how we draw blood, notes CNNTech. One of the best indicators of our health, phlebotomy is more than 3,000 years old, yet the methods used to test blood have not changed much since the modern clinical lab emerged during the 1960s – until now.[1]
The Old Way of Doing it.
The New and Improved Method.
Theranos’ revolutionary new platform enables blood testing via one single, fairly painless prick and a couple of drops of blood, and could change health care for millions of Americans.
An amalgam or combination of the words “therapy” and “diagnosis” the name Theranos is exactly that and their promise to consumers “boils down to comfort, cost and control,” says USA Today.
According to the company’s website, the centers are designed to make the blood testing experience as fast, comfortable and convenient as possible, from a simple check-in, to a tiny sample draw. Anyone can simply walk into any Theranos Wellness Center with a paper order from their doctor, or they can have their doctor submit an order electronically.
Theranos’ tests are performed on just a few drops of blood, which is only 1/100th to 1/1,000th of the amount usually required. A small Theranos nanotainer with barcode can run about 30 tests on a sample obtained by pricking a finger. Theranos phlebotomists, or blood technicians that are licensed to take blood, simply draw blood with a finger stick using a patented method[2]. Holmes told Wired they can get results in less than four hours.
Admitting in a CNN segment that she herself is afraid of needles Holmes claims, “Forty to sixty percent of Americans today are not compliant with even the basic tests that their physicians give them when they do see them, because often they can’t afford it, or they are scared of needles.”
Theranos offers a full range of listing the price of all of its nearly 1,000 laboratory tests on its website, at costs that are a fraction of what they would be through standard reimbursement rates. On average, 7 billion lab tests are performed in the United States every year and lab results dictate about 80 percent of clinical decisions. But more often than not, a patient’s fear of needles and/or the cost of laboratory tests keep many patients from ever even getting tests, according to The American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA)[3].
Theranos is a high-complexity laboratory, certified by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and licensed to operate in nearly every state. Currently it offers more than 200 of the most ordered blood diagnostic tests, and claims it is ramping up to offer more than 1,000. Prices for tests are estimated at a quarter to one half of independent lab prices up to one tenth of a typical hospital lab’s prices.
For any American who is concerned about the health and well-being of their loved ones, the convenience of a quick, painless and less costly blood test at a Theranos Wellness Center at their local Walgreens’ pharmacy could very well mean peace of mind and a chance to live a healthier life.
sources:
[1] https://books.google.com/
[2] https://fortune.com/2014/06/12/theranos-blood-holmes/
[3] https://www.acla.com/