Overcoming Barriers to Equitable Care With Medical Lab Tests Series
“Patients are increasingly trying to understand what their normal is, but too often they do not understand their test results. We developed the Lab Tests Decoded series to empower patients to understand their lab tests results and what their results mean for them. We sought to help fill the information gap and focus on health equity and enabling underserved patients to receive the care they need and deserve, with confidence.”
Empowering BIPOC Patients With Lab Test Resources
Reducing disparities in healthcare has been designated as a priority for many healthcare institutions, organizations, and professionals in the U.S. At Diverse Health Hub (DHH), we are dedicated to both bringing awareness to underserved patients and to providing free educational resources for those groups.
With these resources, we hope to help reduce the estimated 40,000 to 80,000 annual deaths due to preventable diagnostic errors. Here’s a look at some recent efforts toward equitable access and education efforts in clinical laboratory medicine.
Check out our Lab Tests Decoded Series
American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) Efforts
Clinical laboratory medicine involves a range of testing including blood count tests, urinalysis tests, liver function tests, basic metabolic panels, PCR tests, glucose tests, lymphocyte counts, FISH tests, genetic tests, and others. A clinical laboratory medicine organization called the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) formed their Health Equity and Access Division in 2021 to help aid efforts toward equitable care. The purpose of the division is “…to lead the integration, promotion, and advocacy for inclusion and diversity in laboratory medicine with focus on equitable access to appropriate clinical laboratory testing for all,” according to Dr. Octavia Peck-Palmer, chair of the division and associate professor of pathology and critical care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
The Health Equity and Access Division specifically wanted to improve access opportunities for BIPOC individuals, LGBTQ+ individuals, low socioeconomic status individuals, institutionalized individuals, and those who may not self-identify as a member of these groups.
Lab Tests Decoded Webinars
Diverse Health Hub also wanted to support efforts for equitable access to appropriate clinical laboratory testing for all with some free online resources for underserved patients. DHH felt some online webinars would create an accessible opportunity, and our DHH team decided to search for some clinical laboratory scientists to help with these efforts.
A series of three medical lab test webinars featuring Dr. Kyle Riding, assistant professor at the University of Florida Health and Sciences. Riding knew he wanted to be a medical laboratory scientist as an undergraduate at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth and knew he could help patients by becoming a medical laboratory science educator. He wanted to help the next generation of laboratory professionals come to the forefront and assist patients every day by generating objective meaningful information that aids patients and their healthcare professionals in diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of disease.
Dr. Brandy Gunsolus was also recruited to cover a wide range of medical lab test topics that were planned. In these webinars, Dr. Riding and Dr. Gunsolus answered common questions that come up surrounding routine lab tests for annual checkups in addition to some that are asked about cancer testing and genetic testing.
Gaining knowledge about these various tests can help patients feel more at ease about medical lab tests and prepare them to advocate for themselves when they have questions about their test results. Some of the topics covered in the webinars include:
Basic metabolic panels
White blood cell count
Urinalysis tests
Bilirubin tests
PCR tests
Gene expression profiling
Genetic sequencing
Genetic counseling
Noted disparities in genetic tests
Lymphocyte count
FISH tests
Microarray testing
Patients and patient advocates can take advantage of these resources to better prepare themselves for discussions with their doctor or other healthcare professionals. By patients gaining some basic understanding about lab tests, more time can be spent discussing ongoing healthcare needs or treatment options. This additional knowledge further strengthens each patient’s ability to advocate on their own behalf – and to seek help when they feel ignored or that their concerns are dismissed.
If you have an experience to share of when you experienced a health disparity, contact us at DHH. We collect experiences to expose and hopefully prevent them from happening in the future, and to create a space of healing for the individual.
Resources
Sources
Kimberly Scott. AACC Tackles Health Disparities Through New Health Equity and Access Division. AACC website. Accessed May 4, 2022. https://www.aacc.org/cln/cln-daily/2021/aacc-tackles-health-disparities-through-new-health-equity-and-access-division
Strengthening Clinical Laboratories. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. Accessed May 4, 2022. https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/strengthening-clinical-labs.html
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