Clinical Laboratory News - American Association for Clinical ...

long-awaited cdc draft report on
the status of lab medicine published
after months of anticipation, a draft
of Laboratory Medicine: A National
Status Report is available for viewing. CDC
accepted comments on the draft until June
23 and will consider them for inclusion in
the final draft, expected to be posted by the
end of July.
The report is one part of a three-task
project shepherded by the CDC to enhance
the practice of laboratory medicine by identifying
ways to improve laboratory testing
and services. The other related tasks and
accompanying reports involved developing
a process to define, identify, categorize, and
evaluate best practices and policies in laboratory
medicine and the settings in which
they apply; and evaluating the effectiveness
of U.S. proficiency testing programs
to meet quality improvement, educational,
and regulatory goals for clinical laboratories
(see CLN, June 2008).
Written by The Lewin Group, under
subcontract to Battelle Memorial Institute,
the report examines key factors affecting
laboratory medicine. It includes a
detailed profile of the laboratory medicine
sector and discusses such topics as current
standards for laboratory testing and services,
regulatory oversight including CLIA,
impact of accreditation, reimbursement
policies, performance measurement, quality
improvement, evidence-based decision
making, and trends affecting the field.
According to the report, laboratory services
account for only 2.3% of total U.S.
reguLatory
44 CliniCal laboratory news JuLy 2008
p r o f i L e s
p r o f i L e s
healthcare expenditures and 2% of Medicare
expenditures, but they play a significant
role in informing healthcare decisions
and spending. Appropriate use of laboratory
testing is essential for achieving safe,
effective, and efficient patient care. To read
the draft report, go to www.futurelabmedicine.org.
aacc calls on
laboratorians to support
The national children’s study
Children’s Health Act of 2000 au-
T he
thorized the National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development, as well
as the National Institute of Environmental
Health Sciences, the CDC, and the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, to conduct
the National Children’s Study (NCS).
This initiative will examine environmental
influences on the health and development
of over 100,000 children through infancy,
childhood, and early adulthood. But this
study is contingent on Congress’s providing
the $192.5 million needed to keep the
National Children’s Study moving forward.
Unfortunately, the budget proposal President
Bush submitted to Congress for FY
2009 did not provide funding for the study.
AACC has endorsed the study, and the
Pediatric Reference Range Committee
(PRRC) is working with the scientists leading
the study, advising them on laboratoryrelated
issues such as how to collect and
store samples and how to analyze them.
The PRRC hopes to use the data gathered
from the study to develop pediatric refer-
ence ranges. The PRRC also is planning to
conduct a series of adjunct studies, in conjunction
with the NIH initiative, to consider
key analytes not taken up by NCS.
AACC urges all laboratorians to contact
their legislators via AACC’s online advocacy
center on the AACC Web site, www.aacc.
org/gov/gov_affairs/pages/capwiz.aspx, to
encourage them to support this important
study.
national Quality forum
endorses consensus standards
The National Quality Forum (NQF)
has endorsed 48 voluntary consensus
standards focused on measuring the performance
of acute care hospitals. NQF anticipates
that these measures will facilitate
broad-based quality improvement within
hospitals and will help track progress toward
improved patient safety.
Six of the measures target venous
thromboembolism (VTE), a leading cause
of illness and death in the U.S. One of these
measures involves laboratory assessment of
VTE patients with anticoagulation overlap
therapy, and another focuses on unfractionated
heparin dosages/platelet count
monitoring.
NQF has categorized other measures as
Length of Stay/Readmission, Adult Patient
Safety, Pediatric Patient Safety, Pediatrics,
and Surgery and Anesthesia. To view the
entire list of measures, go to www.qualityforum.org/news/releases/051508-endorsed-measures.asp.
rWjf commits $300 million
To Tackle disparities
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
(RWJF) recently announced a 3-year,
$300 million initiative intended to narrow
healthcare disparities across lines of
race and geography. Officials said it would
be the largest effort to improve healthcare
quality ever undertaken by a charity in the
U.S. The initiative, focusing on communities
in 14 geographic areas that together account
for 11% of the population, will bring
together practices, hospitals, health plans,
and patients to work on ways to improve
the quality of care across different settings.
The RWJF also released new research—
conducted by the Dartmouth Atlas Project
at the Dartmouth Institute for Health
Policy and Clinical Practice—that analyzes
Medicare claims to illustrate variations in
healthcare quality nationwide. One finding
of the new study was that an estimated one
in seven patients with diabetes does not get
crucial blood tests, such as HbA1c. About
85% of white patients with diabetes received
these tests, compared with 79% of African
Americans. In Alaska, 71% of patients with
diabetes received blood sugar control tests
every year, compared with the national average
of 91%. To access more information
about the initiative, go to www.rwjf.org.
federal Grants for
school drug Testing
The White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy and the U.S. Dept.
of Education awarded federal grants for
school-based random student drug testing
totaling $5.8 million to 50 educational entities
in 20 states. It is the fifth such grant
award announcement since 2003.
States in which the grants were awarded
are: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado,
Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky,
Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada,
New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma,
Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Washington.
Grant amounts range from $38,860,
given to Currituck County Schools in North
Carolina, to $228,569, given to Premier Integrity
Solutions, a drug and alcohol testing
company headquartered in Russell Springs,
Kentucky.
More than $40 million in federal grants
have gone to an estimated 140 education
and health entities since 2003 to develop,
implement, or expand random student
drug testing. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld
the constitutionality of school-based
random student drug testing in 1995 and
2002.
next month
in CLN
cdc’s
status of lab
medicine
report