Pathway Promenade

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The 71st AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo in Anaheim, California, will feature more than 200 educational sessions spread out over 5 days. To navigate through these choices, attendees have seven dynamic areas or pathways at their fingertips to set a game plan for the Annual Scientific Meeting, including a new pathway on data analytics.

Given the number of concurrent sessions, the pathways can help attendees identify sessions with a common theme, Jason Park MD, PhD, DABCC, chair of this year’s Annual Meeting Organizing Committee (AMOC), told CLN Stat. AMOC chose pathway topics that had high attendance rates at previous AACC Annual Scientific Meetings or were identified as emerging areas of laboratory medicine that might be of high interest to attendees, said Park, an associate professor of pathology at UT Southwestern Medical School and the Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development in Dallas.

The pathways cover seven key areas of clinical laboratory medicine practice:

• Point-of-Care Testing Pathway
• Maternal/Fetal Pathway
• Infectious Diseases Pathway
• Lab Management Pathway
• Toxicology Pathway
• Genomics Pathway
• Data Analytics Pathway

Pathway categories make it easy to identify sessions within a certain subject area. “For example, if an attendee is interested in point-of-care (POC), they can examine the POC pathway and quickly identify many of the POC topics that will be presented,” Park said. POC, along with maternal/fetal, infectious diseases, lab management, and toxicology, represent traditional pathways that attendees will readily identify as their specific area of interest or expertise.

The pathways also represent rapidly evolving and practice-changing areas like genomics and data analytics. “Although most laboratorians are familiar with the basics of genomics and data science, we all recognize that these areas are quickly becoming more important in our daily practice,” Park said. The Annual Scientific Meeting program includes multiple presentations on the latest developments in genomics and data analytics, the latter of which is a new pathway.

Several reasons drove AMOC to add data analytics to the agenda, according to Park. Clinical laboratories have embraced computers and information technology for more than 50 years. In the last decade, new software tools have empowered laboratorians to analyze massive data sets to improve the quality of patient care and clinical operations. Thus, a leadership opportunity exists for clinical laboratory professionals in healthcare data analytics, he said. “Hopefully, this year’s expanded offerings in data analytics will lay the foundation for future Annual Scientific Meetings.”

Register now and set your agenda for the 71st AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo, August 4–8 in Anaheim. AACC members receive a discount on registration.