Healthcare provision is composed of processes necessary for effective patient treatment. Doctors may prompt patients to get a laboratory test to make a prognosis of their condition on their appointment as part of the process. This step is important to decide the best course of action patients should take.
The medicine field relies on clinical laboratory science as a key component of healthcare. In current practice, it’s estimated that at least 60% of clinical decisions rely on a lab result to some extent. That’s why laboratory staff must perform tests accurately and study their effectiveness along with evaluating new ones to maintain consistency.
Clinical laboratory science determines how effective patient care will be. This means effective healthcare will be difficult to achieve without it. Learn more of its value in healthcare in this blog.
Diagnosis of disease
Lab tests are usually performed to support, confirm, or refute disease diagnoses. They are needed to help patients who suspect something about their health based on other information sources such as medical history, physical exam findings, and imaging studies. To determine which tests patients have to undergo, doctors will ask them questions, refer to their medical history, and perform a check-up to decide.
From that point, the doctor will determine which tests may be of value in supporting, confirming, or excluding clinical impressions. The test results will then help the doctor confirm a clinical impression or definitively establish a diagnosis for the patient. It can also disprove clinical suspicion and determine what further testing or alternative approach can help establish a better diagnosis.
In addition, doctors and lab personnel also have to consider the sources of false-positive and false-negative results should it happen. They should also look for ways to recognize misleading results to prevent it from happening again.
Screening for disease
Besides diagnosing diseases, laboratory science is also essential for screening them. For example, different lab tests such as blood drawing courtesy of licensed phlebotomists via https://www.phleetbo.com/ can help point out different medical conditions. Results may post negative from the initial doctors’ clinical impression, but it may indicate another possible condition.
From that possibility, patients can also get themselves screened in a clinical laboratory. A common example of this application is testing of occult blood in the stool to screen for colorectal cancer. It’s widely applied on the grounds of early diagnosis for prevention or early intervention.
A fully-integrated medical discipline
To further emphasize the value of clinical laboratory science, let’s talk about it being a fully-integrated medical discipline. Laboratory medicine has to provide reliable data to satisfy the quality requirements and expectations of clinicians. Thus, trained and qualified laboratory technologists and medical technicians are required to handle such responsibility.
Besides staffing, guidelines for quality management must be made by providers. This is to ensure that consistency is maintained through process optimization and consideration of economic aspects.
All these things considered, we can say that laboratory diagnostics is an integrated medical discipline. It’s one where evidence-based testing, the clinical usefulness of tests and the interpretation of laboratory reports are essential. In addition, due to the complexity and increasing amount of data, lab professionals are needed to interpret them for clinicians and patients.
Conclusion
Healthcare and the medical field will be incomplete without clinical laboratory science. It is an essential component for the effective provision of healthcare to every individual.
