# Extremely fast medical test results – how does this happen? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 19, 2024, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-fast-medical-test-results-how-does-this-happen/1010428 "2024-11-19T01:20:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2024, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-fast-medical-test-results-how-does-this-happen/1010428/21 "2024-11-19T15:39:50Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Could they be farming it out to radiologists on line? We had a 3 am Lyft driver once who was a radiologist who did work between calls. He got a premium for interpreting scans in the middle of the night. Truly, the epitome of the ‘gig economy’. > [@Chronos](#): > > A job that consists of looking at images seems like a perfect fit for working remotely, to me. Well, except when they find something that requires a further consultation with a specialist. Doing these kinds of consults via phone/FaceTime/Zoom/Slack/Teams/Tik-Tok is rife for miscommunication and misinterpretation versus even ninety seconds of actual direct interaction between to face-to-face human experts. > [@susan](#): > > I’ve read that some AI programs are getting better than humans at reading imaging, including mammograms. I’m sure someone wrote that, and it is even sensible that a machine intelligence system—which has the entire purpose of being good at pattern recognition—would be good at finding anomalous indications. That notion ‘AI’ is actually good at diagnosing conditions, on the other hand, I am quite skeptical about, especially given the results of actual vis-a-vis tests rather than the hype of _‘AI for everything’_ advocates who have a vested financial interest in a particular outcome. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2024, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-fast-medical-test-results-how-does-this-happen/1010428/22 "2024-11-19T17:49:23Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Radiologists tend to be well paid enough that it would be a bit surprising to find one doing driving as gig work especially while also on a radiology work shift. But student loans can be killer I guess!! He was a bit old for student loans. His story was his mother had big medical bills and he was doing it to pay them off. She had her work done in the US but was not American so didn’t have Medicare. I didn’t see him do any, so I can’t testify about the size of the screen he used. 3 am Lyft drivers are more interesting than daytime ones. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2024, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-fast-medical-test-results-how-does-this-happen/1010428/23 "2024-11-19T18:52:03Z")
I recently had a follow-up mammogram and sonogram (everything was OK!) and when I made the appointment I was assured that I would have the results before I left. I had the tests, waited five minutes and then had the consultation with the PA that worked with the radiologist. My doctor is part of a large medical practice that has their own lab, the last few times I’ve had bloodwork done the results showed up in MyChart before I got home from the appointment. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2024, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-fast-medical-test-results-how-does-this-happen/1010428/24 "2024-11-19T19:42:05Z")
Whereas my doctor works at a hospital that used to do their own blood tests, but now farms most of them out to Labcorp, whose actual lab is someplace far away. So tests that i used to get back in a couple of hours now take a couple of days. It’s hard to make a case for needing annual screening blood tests back quickly, but it’s annoying. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2024, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-fast-medical-test-results-how-does-this-happen/1010428/25 "2024-11-20T18:38:47Z")
A year ago, I received lab results via my phone before I had left the examining room. Routine stuff, but apparently the machines are fully automated. Blood sample in one end, email with results out the other. When the doctor came back and checked her screen she didn’t seem surprised. The doctor in the exam room did the interpretation, so it is a bit different from the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2024, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-fast-medical-test-results-how-does-this-happen/1010428/26 "2024-11-20T18:48:13Z")
Just want to point out that (relatively) speedy pathology biopsy reports (not including frozen sections where the diagnosis is sent within minutes), i.e. where results are reported within 24 hours are the norm. Except it may not seem that way to the patient, given that delays are frequently incurred within the submitting physician’s practice, where patients are commonly told to expect to be notified of biopsy results “within a few days/a week”) or somesuch. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2024, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-fast-medical-test-results-how-does-this-happen/1010428/27 "2024-11-20T18:52:28Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > My doctor is part of a large medical practice that has their own lab, the last few times I’ve had bloodwork done the results showed up in MyChart before I got home from the appointment. I have bloodwork done as part of a recurring appointment with one of my doctors. I go into their clinic, they do a blood draw, and then I see my doctor about 20 minutes later. Without fail, I get a text that my test results are already available on MyChart before my doctor even comes into the room. It’s pretty impressive. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2024, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-fast-medical-test-results-how-does-this-happen/1010428/28 "2024-11-21T01:52:14Z")
I take my Mom to Cleveland Clinic every two weeks for her chemo treatment. She gets blood work before hand, because they need to make sure it’s safe to give, and to monitor side effects. We typically get the CBC and metabolic panel back in about 20 minutes. The magnesium test takes a few hours. The CEA Blood test, which is a cancer marker, tends to take a day or two. When we aren’t in the ER, her CT scans are posted after a day or two. In the ER, we get results in a few hours. The docs get them a little sooner than that, but it takes time for them to be posted to the app we use. Or course, this is all being done at a major hospital in a major metropolitan part of South Florida. Even with that, one of her tests - CT DNA - has to be sent out by mail, and takes about 2 weeks for us to get results. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2024, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-fast-medical-test-results-how-does-this-happen/1010428/29 "2024-11-21T02:08:10Z")
The last time I had strep throat, I went in to a clinic to get tested, and got confirmation of it in about five minutes. That’s definitely not the way they used to test it: Used to be, they smeared a swab on some agar in a petri dish, and watched to see what grew from that (which takes as long as it takes for bacteria colonies to grow, and can’t really be sped up). I presume that now, they test for antigens on the surface of the bacteria somehow. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2024, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-fast-medical-test-results-how-does-this-happen/1010428/30 "2024-11-21T02:14:46Z")
May I ask what country this was in? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2024, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-fast-medical-test-results-how-does-this-happen/1010428/31 "2024-11-21T02:18:33Z")
They had an insta-strep test at a clinic I worked at in the late 1990s, so it’s nothing new. If they needed more details (like, how to treat a resistant strain) they would have to do a culture like the one you described. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2024, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-fast-medical-test-results-how-does-this-happen/1010428/32 "2024-11-21T02:36:41Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > They had an insta-strep test at a clinic I worked at in the late 1990s, so it’s nothing new. Hm. The time before that when I had strep, the doctor looked in my mouth and immediately said “That’s definitely strep, and if not, it’s definitely still bacterial, so I’m ordering an antibiotic either way”, and didn’t bother with any test. And the times before that, it would have been maybe mid-90s, and they had to do a culture. So if the instant tests existed then, they weren’t yet widespread. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2024, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-fast-medical-test-results-how-does-this-happen/1010428/33 "2024-11-21T03:31:42Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > May I ask what country this was in? California. Bay Area, to be precise. I forget which country he’s from. We’ve had a wide variety, including one driver whose wife has an Ethiopian restaurant a mile or so from me that we really need to visit. I also need to get my INR measured once every 6 weeks or so. I used to do it in a clinic where I got the results immediately. Now I have a home system where I get the results immediately if the pos works. Not even close to radiology, but still. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-fast-medical-test-results-how-does-this-happen/1010428.md?page=1)