Laboratory Data and Patient Care

The best conferences are often those where the participants are from a mixture of different disciplines. There is a cross fertilization of ideas and a wider perspective of common problems. The 6th International Meeting on Clinical Laboratory Organization and Management, held in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands, on 24th-28th June 1987 lived up to its promise of a stimu lating program and differing views from a wide range of international par ticipants. The theme of the conference was "Laboratory Data and Patient Care" and this provided a forum for discussion of many aspects of laboratory input into the diagnosis and monitoring of disease. The titles of the papers in this book of the proceedings will give some indication of the breadth of topics discussed, ranging from problems of laboratory management and pro fessional leadership to educating the clinician in the most cost effective testing strategies; and computer aided diagnosis to the best presentation of data and graphical displays. The backgrounds of the participants were equally wide, ranging from medical statisticians and computer experts to practising clinicians and heads of clinical laboratories. There was also a significant number of delegates from commercial companies who were able to inject a different perspective on many problems. This blend of backgrounds and disciplines promoted much discussion and new avenues for research and development.

Inhalt
Economical Use of the Clinical Laboratory.- Rationalizing laboratories around techniques that cross departmental boundaries.- In search of laboratory excellence.- The economics of near patient testing.- The asking for redundant tests syndrome.- Modification of Physician Behavior at the Laboratory Interface.- Disease and diagnosis, a philosophical analysis.- Cost-effectiveness analysis of thyroid testing strategies.- Is it a dichotomy between the clinician and the pathologist in hematology?.- The physician, friend or foe? Education of physicians in laboratory medicine.- Clinical Decision Analysis and the Laboratory.- Decision analysis and the clinical laboratory.- Systematic nomenclature for measures of status-quantity relationship.- Expected value of clinical information: A revisionist view.- Some tricks and tools for intelligent use of multiple tests.- ROC curves: Assessment of clinical test accuracy.- Data Bases and Expert Systems.- Data base management and knowledge-based systems in clinical laboratory medicine.- Retrospective research on clinical laboratory test results using a hospital information system. A preliminary report.- Experience with expert systems in clinical chemistry.- Routine applications of the expert system PRO.M.D.- A system for medical reasoning (SMR) in the clinical laboratory.- Laboratory, patient and expert system as a triad in patient care.- A PC-workstation supporting interpretation of clinical chemistry laboratory data.- Data Presentation and Computer Display.- Quality control and telematics.- Disciplining time-related clinical and laboratory data.- Decision making in clinical monitoring: experts, expert systems and statistics.