The Materials and Methods section details how experimenters conducted laboratory work. Its aim is to provide enough detail that an experienced scientist in the field could replicate it and produce similar results.
Labs must undertake this important effort in order to demonstrate the value of their services and support new reimbursement models.
The Future of Clinical Laboratories
Clinical laboratories form the backbone of essential healthcare services, providing accurate and timely test results used by physicians to diagnose and treat their patients. Test results may serve as screening tools, diagnostic instruments to confirm or rule out an expected diagnosis, or therapeutic indicators to measure response to treatment.
Though laboratories play an essential role, their role is sometimes underestimated by clinicians and medical practices alike. This may be partly because many do not fully appreciate how lab testing supports patient health; and partly due to being less visible than other areas of a practice.
The COVID-19 pandemic has increased awareness of clinical laboratories, helping more physicians recognize their value in healthcare delivery and importance to them as an integral component. Furthermore, it shed light on ongoing staff shortages, consolidation within industry, and availability of at-home testing options.
As the world recovers from pandemic impacts, laboratory professionals are looking forward to the future and considering how they can best meet patient needs in an ever-evolving environment. Many labs partnered to find ways to balance investments in equipment and facilities with staffing capacity needs, test volume requirements, outbreak preparedness strategies and costs – these partnerships highlight the necessity for optimizing resources collaboratively while remaining cost competitive.
Laboratories have an opportunity to expand their value beyond laboratory walls and into communities by supporting population health through consumer-driven shared decision making models focusing on improving outcomes, reducing costs, and decreasing disease prevalence. Labs must remain proactive and innovative to maintain long-term viability and relevance within healthcare. CLP asked several Central Laboratory Services experts for their predictions for 2023; here are their top 10 suggestions below:
Technology
Healthcare executives looking to bolster the budgets of clinical labs and meet rising testing and data management demands will find many options in the market. When selecting partners, labs should look for those that provide forward-thinking options like patient registration, test kit ordering, specimen collection workflow optimization, report delivery, telemedicine support, physician approval processes and electronic prescribing as essential features.
Though budget constraints in hospital laboratories remain tight, technological innovations are revolutionizing their work. Examples include digital pathology and advanced laboratory automation which reduce errors while increasing efficiency, providing greater diagnostic insights, and helping hospitals achieve positive outcomes for their patients.
Information technology (IT) is dramatically altering how laboratorians educate themselves and their staff; communicate with one another; market their services; and manage data. IT has enabled a new market for direct-to-consumer lab tests such as home HIV kits and glucose monitoring; cytopathology – which examines cells from various body parts for signs of inflammation or cancer; molecular diagnostics using DNA or RNA analysis tests; and surgical pathology which examines organs, limbs, tumors fetuses biopsied during surgery.
IT innovations also present labs with opportunities to use wearable devices to better monitor their patients’ health. Wearable devices allow labs to utilize risk stratification techniques where patients’ conditions can be tracked over time and alerts sent directly to clinicians should any problems arise. IT allows patients to monitor their own results online or via smartphone apps, giving them a deeper insight into their condition while making it easier for them to take control of their health – which in turn improves patient satisfaction while decreasing costs. Example: Patients who know their bloodwork results may be more proactive about seeking follow-up care and taking steps to maintain health – this can significantly lower hospital costs by decreasing emergency room visits.
Professionalism
Clinical laboratories are composed of teams of highly specialised individuals who collaborate to provide physicians with accurate results that aid them in diagnosing and treating patients. Their tasks span across numerous scientific disciplines such as biochemistry, microbiology, genetics, immunology, haematology, pathology etc. for maximum productivity levels. Collaboration amongst researchers is vital in this work environment to achieve maximum levels of productivity.
Clinical laboratories provide cost-effective, objective health information on disease prevention, diagnosis, patient care and public health surveillance. Clinical laboratories play a critical role in providing safe and efficient delivery of healthcare while optimizing resource use and minimizing overall healthcare expenditures.
From a technological perspective, the future of clinical laboratories should be marked by consolidation, automation and integration with other systems and technology. It will include new technologies like drones for sample transporting, real-time data management, novel human-machine interfaces and 3D printing that will increase performance and efficiency while offering personalized medical testing experiences and improving decision-making processes (5).
Professional considerations further emphasize the necessity of integrating laboratory tests effectively into clinical pathways to ensure lab medicine remains an integral component of healthcare and its stewardship (26). This will require developing more effective links with those who utilize laboratory services, as well as creating models that ensure appropriate test request, interpretation, and avoid viewing laboratory tests as commodities; ultimately enabling results to translate into meaningful clinical information and patient outcomes.
Laboratory professionals know it is imperative to uphold a code of ethics that protects them from abuse and safeguards the integrity of their profession, both for personal safety reasons as well as patient care and public safety reasons. Adherence to such codes of professionalism allows lab professionals to ensure accurate healthcare results that are free from corruption and mismanagement in an environment which ensures accurate public healthcare results are delivered accurately and reliably.
Ethics
As with other healthcare professionals, laboratory scientists must uphold high ethical standards to improve patient care and contribute to society. This means respecting patients’ autonomy while advocating an equitable distribution of resources; an imperative task given that around 70% of medical diagnoses rely on laboratory tests (Lord Carter of Coles 2008).
As an increasingly specialised field, diagnostic medical global central laboratory service is not immune from ethical issues. This is particularly evident in resource-limited settings where there may be competing demands of quality, affordability, and accessibility that must be balanced against one another. Therefore, clinical laboratories must carefully consider both benefits and risks when adopting new technologies as well as how best they can serve their communities.
Clinical laboratories should adhere to the code of conduct set out by their national societies in order to ensure professional conduct from staff, respect of confidentiality and avoid potential conflicts of interests; furthermore it helps foster confidence in operational integrity, capability, impartiality and safety within a lab.
Clinical laboratory ethics are defined by a set of moral values and judgments used to inform medical laboratory testing practices. There are three core principles in biomedical ethics that guide their work: respect for persons/autonomy, beneficence/nonmaleficence and justice.
Laboratories should follow these guidelines because their primary duty should be the well-being of patients. Furthermore, they should deliver services which are safe, effective, efficient and timely while supporting equitable distribution of healthcare resources and providing patients with information necessary for informed decision-making about their healthcare.
Additionally, laboratory staff must receive training on ethical principles and have access to regular continuing professional development opportunities in order to deepen their understanding of any ethical issues that may arise in their work and how these principles can help resolve them. Furthermore, laboratory managers must remain aware of any ethical concerns that could arise within their lab and take appropriate steps in order to prevent them.
