026 - How Laboratory Medicine is changing
Autor(s): P. Cappelletti
Issue: RIMeL - IJLaM, Vol. 4, N. 3-S1, 2008 (MAF Servizi srl ed.)
Page(s): 26-30
In the past ten years, the Laboratory Medicine changed dramatically, from a traditional focus on analytic activity to a global vision about the discipline - patient-centered and sensitive to the clinicians’ needs. The “transfiguration” of Laboratory Medicine has several reasons: demographic and pathological change of human being and correlate demands in healthcare organizations; the medical progress and increasing technological explosion; new professional skills and competences. The technological revolution is the main driver of the change. The Institute of Medicine attributed shortcomings in healthcare to 4 main reasons: the growing complexity of science and technology; the increase in chronic conditions; an inadequate healthcare delivery system; constraints on exploitation of the revolution in information technology. Science and technology advanced more rapidly than the ability of healthcare systems to deliver them safely, effectively, efficiently, and equitably. Laboratory Medicine responds by 4 levels of intervention: analytical validity; clinical validity; clinical usefulness; social context. Because of persistent difficulties in those fields, great attention is required for analytical accuracy, outcomes research, and actions in social context. The reorganization of Laboratory Medicine services represents the point of fusion of strength and limits of technologic diagnostics. The main issues in the Italian reorganization are: overcome of regional inequalities in delivery of Laboratory services; evidence-based guidelines and rules, inspired by “Pathology Modernisation”, for reorganization and use of technology; reconsideration and improving of the education and training of the Laboratory Medicine professionals