Improving the Utilization of Molecular and Genetic Tests: Strategies for Appropriate Test Selection, Achieving Error Reduction and Cost Savings, and Improving Patient Outcomes

Webinar was held Wednesday,
March 16, 2016 at 1PM EDT

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Clinical laboratories are introducing 10 new molecular and genetic tests every day, a rate of growth that has produced 60,000 tests currently available for clinical use! This is indeed a remarkable number—one that makes finding and ordering the right test more challenging than ever before.

With the market for molecular and genetic tests growing so quickly, few labs have the expertise needed to effectively manage the utilization of these tests, as it’s become a virtual impossibility to even keep pace with the need for increased data on tests and prices—compounding the difficulty of efficiently managing test selection, test costs, and send-out errors.

To address these issues, a special webinar entitled “Improving the Utilization of Molecular and Genetic Tests: Strategies for Appropriate Test Selection, Achieving Error Reduction and Cost Savings, and Improving Patient Outcomes,” is being presented Wednesday, March 16 at 1 PM EDT. During this 90-minute webinar, you’ll learn about innovative new utilization management programs designed for you to ensure the appropriate use of genetic and esoteric tests, more effectively control costs, decrease ordering errors, and improve the value of testing for both patients and providers.

Your presenters are Mike Astion, M.D., Ph.D., Medical Director, Department of Laboratories at Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Mark Harris, Ph.D., MBA, CEO and Founder of NextGxDx in Franklin, TN. Dr. Astion is one of the founders of the Pediatric Laboratory Utilization Guidance Service (PLUGS), a national collaboration of institutions working on test utilization management strategies to improve the value of testing by decreasing both errors and unnecessary testing costs. Dr. Harris founded NextGxDx, comprised of a dynamic team of clinicians, data scientists, and software engineers, working to bring efficiency and transparency to the growing field of genetic testing.

Astion and Harris bring a wealth of unique and valuable insights to this webinar. At a time when hospitals are experiencing fewer inpatient admissions and budgets are declining, tighter management of every source of unnecessary or excessive cost becomes a financial priority. The issues associated with ordering molecular and genetic tests are an important, pragmatic driver. Your presenters will help you to better understand where and how you are spending money on molecular and genetic tests, and where you are losing money. They will guide you toward identifying opportunities to make more informed choices, to close your knowledge gap, and to achieve improved patient safety and financial outcomes through better utilization management of molecular and genetic tests.

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A sampling of the information your presenters will share with you:

• How the right technology tools can help with accurate and appropriate genetic testing ordering
• How to decrease your errors associated with unnecessary laboratory testing
• How effective lab test utilization can contribute to big savings for both your lab and for patients
• How to address workflow inefficiencies associated with the test ordering process
• Learn specific practical tools and approaches that can be applied in your own laboratory institution, and much more!

The explosion of expensive esoteric and genetic tests
has sent the cost of send-out testing spiraling ever higher
at hospitals and health systems across the United States

The goal is to improve patient outcomes, while achieving efficient and effective lab test utilization. But the financial gap between cost and price paid for genetic tests directly affects the entire lab budget and therefore the ability of the lab to serve its hospital. And the fact that many genetic tests are misordered or unnecessary compounds the problem.