The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has funded a number of National Laboratory System (NLS) projects over the past several years. The third round was funded in 2006 by CDC cooperative agreement to four grantees.
The purpose of the program, “Initiative to Integrate Clinical Laboratories into Public Health Testing,” is to demonstrate potential ways in which clinical laboratories may be better engaged to conduct public health-related testing and participate in the public health system, especially through (1) better adherence to voluntary guidelines for testing practices for tests having a public health impact; and/or (2) better rates of reporting tests of public health concern to state and/or local public health authorities; and/or (3) improved rates of submission of isolates and specimens for public health testing.
Four grantees were selected by a competitive review process for this project:
Montana
- In a collaboration with Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota to enhance testing
and reporting practices for Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing and STDs in urban
rural labs.
- Electronic Laboratory Reporting: Survey to identify capabilities of clinical
laboratories for implementing electronic laboratory data reporting. After assessing,
strategies will be developed to promote more efficient ways of reporting tests to local
public health authorities.
- Montana Laboratory Forum: Comprised of partners throughout the state, will prioritize
and focus on various areas of concern to the Montana PHL System. The
committee will develop a mission statement, formalize a communication system plan
between partners, educate partners regarding their role, and will develope objectives
that can be used for system evaluation.
- Training Needs Assessment on Molecular Testing: Survey will be e-distributed to
clinical laboratories to assess interest in having the state PHL facilitate training in
molecular testing. Once identified, training needs will be addressed.
- Training in Rural Montana: To address issues identified from a 2007 AST survey,
Montana provided three on-site trainings. Two of these trainings were located at rural
clinical laboratories that experience a large number of barriers to training. The
trainings, customized for the attendees, focused on AST best practices, proper use
of the CLSI guidelines, and creation of an antibiogram, and were well received.
- Project lead: Susanne Zanto, szanto@mt.gov, 406.444.3444
Wisconsin
- Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene (WSLH) has developed a
laboratory network toolkit (i.e., an introductory laboratory networking video,
a laboratory network development guide, examples of laboratory network educational
projects, regional meetings, workshops, and teleconferneces) that will be shared
with all other state public health laboratories through APHL.
- WSLH is also conducting an antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) practices
survey that is being piloted in collaboration with other grantees (Nebraska and
Montana) and the CDC. This tool assesses statewide clinical AST practices and
measures improvements after implementing educational interventions in the form of
AST teleconferences and workshops mentioned above. Antibiograms were also
collected from Wisconsin clinical laboratories to develop a statewide antibiogram
from use by smaller clinical laboratories. In addition, an AST validation study was
conducted to identify problem areas in statewide AST performance.
- Project lead: Steven Marshall, marshast@slh.wisc.edu, 608.890.1093
Nebraska
- The Nebraska Public Health Laboratory works to improve consultation capabilities
with both in-person meetings and using the STATPack (Secure Telecommunications
Application Terminal Package), an interactive telemedicine system, which was
developed by the Nebraska PH lab.
- The Nebraska Public Health Laboratory strives to bring training and hands-on
experiences in the form of “web labs” and lectures regarding common and advanced
antibiotic susceptibility testing issues to front line laboratories.
- Project lead: Dr. Paul Fey, pfey@unmc.edu, 402.559.2122
Foundation for Healthcare Quality/Washington
- The Foundation for Healthcare Quality strives to improve the delivery of public health
and clinical testing in small hospital laboratories in Washington state through a
quality management system that ensures service delivery, customer service,
reduction of variability that occurs in laboratory practice, policies, and processes.
- Additionally, there is an initiative to identify the challenges faced by the clinical
laboratories in each state and impede them from adhering to voluntary national
laboratory practice guidelines in microbiology, report of results, and submission of
isolates and specimens to the state public health laboratory.
- Project lead: Dr. Jon Counts, jcounts@qualityhealth.org, 206.441.4441
More information on this project can be found on CDC’s website.