Clinical Laboratory Tests: Which, Why, and What Do The Results Mean?
Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: According to Dr. Michael Laposata, the medical specialty that nearly every practicing physician relies on every day, for which training in many medical schools is limited to no more than a scattered few lectures throughout the entire curriculum, is “laboratory medicine.” The importance of understanding the principles for selecting and ordering the most rational laboratory test(s) on a specific patient is heightened in the current age of managed care, medical necessity, and outcome-oriented medicine. The days of a “shotgun approach” to ordering laboratory tests has, of necessity, been replaced by a “rifle” (or targeted) approach based on an understanding of the test’s diagnostic performance and the major “legitimate” reasons for ordering a laboratory test. Such an understanding is critical to good laboratory practice and patient outcomes.
Source: Laboratory Medicine
Author: Frank H. Wians
Language: English
Subfield: Medical Laboratory Technology
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $4,535
OpenAlex ID: W2162786929