Briefing: Reducing Medical Costs and Improving Patient Outcomes Through Laboratory Testing

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- By enabling early disease detection and personalized treatment, laboratory tests can save lives as well as billions in medical costs each year. Join AACC and leading experts in laboratory medicine for a discussion of how clinical tests can be leveraged to achieve these goals, as well as the policies needed to support testing's vital contribution to healthcare.

Speakers will address:

• Preventing Diabetes
  
  
• Early Detection of Colon Cancer
  
  
• Personalized Precision Medicine – Ensuring the Right Drug at the Right Time

Effective use of laboratory tests is more important than ever as the population of Americans with one or more chronic conditions grows. Appropriate testing could curtail the diabetes epidemic by identifying patients with prediabetes, enabling interventions to prevent the onset of the full-blown disease and its debilitating, expensive complications. New non-invasive laboratory tests for colon cancer could help prevent 60% of deaths from this disease—the 2^nd most common cause of cancer mortality in the U.S.—by making screening more accessible for patients. Additionally, emerging laboratory tests can determine whether patients will respond to prescribed drugs prior to beginning therapy, ensuring that the first treatment patients try will be the right one.

In order for clinical testing to reach its full potential in the effort to combat these public health issues, though, policies and regulations must continue to be adopted that encourage innovation and facilitate patient access to tests while still ensuring that these tests are safe and effective. Appropriate reimbursement for laboratory tests is also needed so that patients can benefit from the timely, targeted treatment they make possible.

When: Breakfast Briefing: 9 – 10 a.m., Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Where: Room 2043, Rayburn House Office Building

Who:

• Moderator: Dr. David Koch, Emory University/Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta, GA
• Dr. David Sacks, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD
• Dr. Jason Park, Children's Health, Children's Medical Center, Dallas, TX
• Dr. Roland Valdes, University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, KY

RSVP: Email Christine DeLong, AACC Communications Manager at [email protected].

About AACC
Dedicated to achieving better health through laboratory medicine, AACC brings together more than 50,000 clinical laboratory professionals, physicians, research scientists, and business leaders from around the world focused on clinical chemistry, molecular diagnostics, mass spectrometry, translational medicine, lab management, and other areas of progressing laboratory science. Since 1948, AACC has worked to advance the common interests of the field, providing programs that advance scientific collaboration, knowledge, expertise, and innovation. For more information, visit www.aacc.org.

SOURCE AACC

Related Links

http://www.aacc.org