The newly relaunched LabsAreVital programme was out in full force at the American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC), held recently in Houston, Texas, where senior representatives from each of the four global organisations that now make up the Labs Are Vital consortium management board were available to discuss the programme.
Originally founded by Abbott in 2006, ownership of Labs Are Vital recently passed to the laboratory community, with the new consortium taking the lead. The American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP), International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC), International Federation of Biomedical Laboratory Science (IFBLS) and the World Association of
Societies of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (WASPaLM) are working together to develop the community via a new web platform and social media engagement. The Labs Are Vital website is where supporters can read posts by world-renowned experts, contribute comments and access an online toolkit of resources.
Graham Beastall, IFCC president and long-time Labs Are Vital supporter, said: “LabsAreVital is now an independent programme owned and driven by the people it serves. The AACC meeting was the perfect opportunity for us to explain how laboratory professionals, publishers and industry sponsors can get involved. Too many laboratory professionals feel that their profession is undervalued, underappreciated and underfunded. We want to make Labs Are Vital a powerful voice to emphasise that laboratory medicine is part of the multidisciplinary team at the heart of patient care.”
www.labsarevital.com