Back for the second year, Industry Workshop Theater presentations in the heart of the Exhibit Hall at the Georgia World Convention Center at AACC’s Annual Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo in Atlanta, are featuring discussions on the latest lab testing technologies, best practices and more. These free sessions, given by highly regarded speakers, make a convenient education stop for attendees amid the hustle and bustle of the show floor. They’re taking place July 28-29.
Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will start things off at 10:15 a.m. on July 28 by discussing rising cases of hepatitis C virus (HCV) and syphilis in the United States and screening options for both diseases. Moderated by Katherine Soreng, PhD, of Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, the session will feature communicable disease experts Yetunde Fakile, PhD, and Saleem Kamili, PhD, from the CDC, who will review the diagnostic advantages and limitations of both traditional and reverse screening algorithms.
At noon on July 28, Anthony Killeen, MD, PhD, of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and Michael Astion, MD, PhD, of Seattle Children’s Hospital, will lead the session, “Continuing the Conversation: How to Become a Clinical Consultant sponsored by LabLeaders.com.” The session will be sponsored by Roche Diagnostics Corporation.
An Abbott-sponsored discussion at 1:45 p.m. will review lab diagnosis of von Willebrand disease (VWD), the most common congenital bleeding disorder in the world. Larry Smith, PhD, director of the coagulation lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City will review current classification criteria for this disorder and discuss various laboratory assays used to diagnose VWD.
At 3:30 p.m. on July 28, Michael Laposata, MD, PhD, chair of pathology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, and Mark Triscott, PhD, vice present of research and development, reagent development and sensors at Instrumentation Laboratory, will lead a session sponsored by Instrumentation Laboratory, “Clinical and Economic Value of Antifactor Xa (Anti-Xa) Monitoring in Patients Receiving Heparin.” They will explore the clinical and economic value of Anti-Xa monitoring and review assays for Anti-Xa monitoring.
More industry theater is scheduled for the morning of July 29, beginning at 10:15 a.m. with an overview of Agilent Technologies’ StreamSelect LC/MS System. The technology delivers up to four parallel chromatographic separations to one triple quadrupole mass spectrometer to improve throughput. David J. Edwards, PhD, of Agilent Technologies, and Cory Bystrom, PhD, of Cleveland HeartLab, will discuss how the StreamSelect system is applied in real-world clinical settings.
At noon on July 29, a session will be held on clinical decisionmaking in the emergency department during flu season. Sponsored by Roche Diagnostics, this workshop will feature Glen Hansen, PhD, of Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, who will discuss the results of the Cobas Liat influenza A/B assay during the 2015 influenza season and how test results may have impacted patient care in an emergency department setting.
At 1 p.m. on July 29, Instrumentation Laboratory will be hosting another session, this one on the hot topic of Individualized Quality Control Plans (IQCP). Lois M. Schultz, MT (ASCP), of Case Western Medical Center in Cleveland, and Kim Skala, MT(ASCP). a clinical specialist in critical care and point of care at Instrumentation Laboratories, will present an overview of a real-life case study from University Hospitals Case Western Medical Center and lessons learned in developing a complete and successful IQCP.
Paul E.C. Sibley, PhD, of Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, at 1:45 p.m. on July 29 will moderate the session, “Improving Diagnostic Testing and Interpretation of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD),” sponsored by Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics. Speakers Kevin J. Martin, MB, BCh, FASN, of Saint Louis University, and Stuart M. Sprague, DO, of NorthShore University HealthSystem, in Evanston, Illinois, will discuss why it’s important for laboratories to know about the specific tests used to diagnosis CKD, as well as the improvements that have been made to these tests over time.
From 2:45 to 3:45 p.m., Edward Bass of Inova Diagnostics, Marvin Fritzler, PhD, MD, of the University of Calgary in Canada, and Laurel Tria, of Northshore-Long Island Jewish Health System in New York, will discuss how lab and health economics have driven indirect fluorescence assay automation. Inova Diagnostics is sponsoring the session.
Rounding out the Industry Workshop Theater on July 29 at 3:30 p.m. is the BD-sponsored discussion, “Can Plasma Be the Universal Blood Specimen for Clinical Chemistry Testing?” During this interactive session, speakers Mitchell Scott, PhD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and Martin Fleisher, PhD, of MSKCC, will discuss how they’ve addressed the challenge of choosing serum or plasma as the primary specimen type for their labs. BD’s Sol Green will moderate this session.