Effecting–Translational –Research –Practices

Extract

The issue of transferring medical research findings into practice is currently a topic of concern in most scientific circles. Our society has never experienced such an explosion of new scientific findings as we have seen in recent years. Yet practitioners/clinicians do not adopt many of these new findings into their practice. Scientists and research funding organizations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) remain frustrated over this issue termed ‘translational research’. For example, the budget of the NIH last year was $24 billion for medical research. That is a large portion of the Federal Government's budget and represents the hard earned tax dollars of U.S. citizens. This investment in medical research yielded many new discoveries yet they remain largely in scientific journals. They have yet to be incorporated into practice and do not benefit the society that paid for them. The reasons for this are varied. Some studies on the problem cite the large masses of new information practitioners have to continually absorb. Others cite human nature and its resistance to change.

The clinical laboratory is not immune from this issue. New procedures are constantly being developed. The question begs which procedures are to be added to the formulary of laboratory procedures. If all new procedures were added to every laboratory, our laboratories would be very large, expensive, and inefficient. The model that the laboratory profession has chosen to follow over many years is having reference laboratories provide the newer, more esoteric tests and the local laboratories provide the…