Managers of pathology groups and clinical laboratories can learn from the challenges confronting the radiology profession
Members of the Intersociety Committee of the American Society of Radiology (ACR) recently met in Coronado, Calif., to discuss the “most pressing” challenges to their profession and investigate possible solutions, according to Radiology Business. Many of these challenges mimic similar challenges faced by anatomic pathology professionals.
The radiology leaders identified seven of the “most important challenges facing radiology today.” They include: declining reimbursement, corporatization and consolidation, inadequate labor force, imaging appropriateness, burnout, turf wars with nonphysicians, and workflow efficiency, according to a report on the meeting published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR).
“Solving these issues will not be easy,” said Bettina Siewert, MD, diagnostic radiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, Mass., professor of radiology at Harvard, and lead author of the JACR report, in the JACR. “This is a collection of ‘wicked’ problems defined as having (1) no stoppable rule, (2) no enumerable set of solutions or well-described set of permissible operations, and (3) stakeholders with very different worldviews and frameworks for understanding the problem,” she added.
“The Intersociety Committee is a freestanding committee of the ACR established to promote collegiality and improve communication among national radiology organizations,” JACR noted.
“Taken together, a ‘perfect storm’ of pressures on radiologists and their institutions is brewing,” said Bettina Siewert, MD (above), diagnostic radiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Mass., professor of radiology at Harvard, and lead author of the JACR report. Wise pathology and clinical laboratory leaders will see the similarities between their industry’s challenges and those facing radiology. (Photo copyright: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.)
How Radiology Challenges Correlate to Pathology Practices
Here are the seven biggest challenges facing radiology practices today as identified by the Intersociety Committee of the ACR.
Declining Reimbursement: According to the ACR report, radiologists in 2021 performed 13% more relative value units (RVUs) per Medicare beneficiary compared to 2005. However, the inflation-adjusted conversion factor fell by almost 34%––this led to a 25% decline in reimbursements.
This issue has plagued the pathology industry as well. According to an article published in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology (AJCP), prior to adjusting for inflation, the average physician reimbursement increased by 9.7% from 2004 to 2024 for all included anatomic pathology CPT codes. After adjusting for inflation, the average physician reimbursement decreased by 34.2% for included CPT codes. The greatest decrease in reimbursement observed from 2004 to 2024 was for outside slide consultation at 60.5% ($330.12 to $130.49), followed by pathology consultation during surgery at 59.0% ($83.54 to $34.29). The average CAGR was -2.19%,” the authors wrote.
“Our study demonstrates that Medicare physician reimbursement for common anatomic pathology procedures is declining annually at an unsustainable rate,” the AJCP authors added.
The radiologists who identified this trend in their own field suggest that medical societies could lead the push to minimize the reimbursement cuts. Pathologists could also adopt this ‘strength in numbers’ mentality to advocate for one another.
Corporatization Consolidation: The authors of the ACR report identified this issue as limiting job opportunities for radiologists particularly in private practice. Pathology professionals have seen the same trend in their field as well. Increasingly, small pathology groups have been consolidated into larger regional groups. Some of those larger regional pathology groups will then be acquired by public laboratory corporations.
The authors of the ACR report suggest radiologists should be educated on the pros and cons of consolidation. They also suggest pursuing unionization.
Inadequate Labor Force: In both radiology and pathology there is a supply-and-demand issue when it comes to labor. Staffing shortages have been felt across all of healthcare, but particularly among pathology groups and clinical laboratories. Siewert and her co-authors suggest a three-pronged approach to address this issue:
Creating residency positions in private practice.
Recruiting international medical graduates.
Increasing job flexibility.
Pathology professionals could apply these same ideas to help close the gap between the open positions in the field and the number of professionals to fill them.
Imaging Appropriateness: A gap between service capacity and service demand for radiology imaging has created a frustrating mismatch between radiologists and clinicians. Radiology experts point to overutilization of the service causing the supply-and-demand crisis. Comparatively, pathologists see a similar issue in complex cases requiring more pathologist time to come to an appropriate diagnosis and identify a care plan.
“To facilitate this reduction, better data on imaging outcomes for specific clinical questions are urgently needed,” the authors of the ACR report wrote as a possible solution. “Considering the magnitude of the mismatch crisis, radiologists may also need to consider expanding their consultative role to include that of a gatekeeper, as is done in other more resource-controlled countries.”
Burnout: Perhaps one of the most talked about subjects in the medical field has been burnout. The issue has been thrust to the forefront with the COVID-19 pandemic; however, the burnout crisis began before the pandemic. About 78% of radiologists surveyed for this report claimed to be exceeding their personal work capacity.
The authors of the ACR report suggest a structured approach to air grievances without descending into despair. “Using a team approach based on the concept of listen-sort-empower, burnout can be combatted by fostering free discussion between frontline workers and radiologists,” they said. “Facilitators unaffiliated with the radiology department can help to maintain focus on gratitude for positive attributes of the work and the institution as well as to keep the sessions on task and prevent them from devolving into complaint sessions with a subsequent loss of hope.”
A similar approach could be applied to pathology groups and clinical laboratory to combat worker burnout as well.
Turf Wars with Nonphysicians: Over the last five years the number of imaging exams being interpreted by nonphysician providers has increased by 30%, according to the ACR report. The writers emphasized the need for increased understanding and awareness about the importance of physician-led care. They suggest solidarity among hospital medical staff to provide a united front in addressing this issue in hospital bylaws.
In pathology, the counterpart is how large physician groups are bringing anatomic pathology in-house. This has been an ongoing trend for the past 20 years. It means that the pathologist is now an employee of the physician group (or a partner/shareholder in some cases).
Increase Workflow Efficiency: Image interpretation accounts for only 36% of the work radiologists perform, the ACR report noted. This issue has a direct counterpart in pathology where compliance requirements and various tasks take time away from pathologist diagnosis. These issues could be solved by working AI into tasks, delegating non-interpretive tasks to other workers, and improving the design of reading rooms. All of these possible solutions could also be applied to clinical pathologists.
These issues being faced by radiologists compare directly to similar issues in the clinical pathology world. Pathologists and pathology group managers would be wise to learn from the experience of their imaging colleagues and possibly adopt some of the ACR’s suggested solutions.
These advances in the battle against cancer could lead to new clinical laboratory screening tests and other diagnostics for early detection of the disease
As Dark Daily reported in part one of this story, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has identified 12 new breakthroughs in the fight against cancer that will be of interest to pathologists and clinical laboratory managers.
As we noted in part one, the WEF originally announced these breakthroughs in an article first published in May 2022 and then updated in October 2024. According to the WEF, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified cancer as a “leading cause of death globally” that “kills around 10 million people a year.”
The WEF is a non-profit organization base in Switzerland that, according to its website, “engages political, business, academic, civil society and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.”
Monday’s ebrief focused on four advances identified by WEF that should be of particular interest to clinical laboratory leaders. Here are the others.
Personalized Cancer Vaccines in England
The National Health Service (NHS) in England, in collaboration with the German pharmaceutical company BioNTech, has launched a program to facilitate development of personalized cancer vaccines. The NHS Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad will seek to match cancer patients with clinical trials for the vaccines. The Launch Pad will be based on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology, which is the same technology used in many COVID-19 vaccines.
The BBC reported that these cancer vaccines are treatments, not a form of prevention. BioNTech receives a sample of a patient’s tumor and then formulates a vaccine that exposes the cancer cells to the patient’s immune system. Each vaccine is tailored for the specific mutations in the patient’s tumor.
“I think this is a new era. The science behind this makes sense,” medical oncologist Victoria Kunene, MBChB, MRCP, MSc (above), trial principal investigator from Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) involved in an NHS program to develop personalized cancer vaccines, told the BBC. “My hope is this will become the standard of care. It makes sense that we can have something that can help patients reduce their risk of cancer recurrence.” These clinical trials could lead to new clinical laboratory screening tests for cancer vaccines. (Photo copyright: Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.)
Seven-Minute Cancer Treatment Injection
NHS England has also begun treating eligible cancer patients with under-the-skin injections of atezolizumab, an immunotherapy marketed under the brand name Tecentriq, Reuters reported. The drug is usually delivered intravenously, a procedure that can take 30 to 60 minutes. Injecting the drug takes just seven minutes, Reuters noted, saving time for patients and cancer teams.
The drug is designed to stimulate the patient’s immune system to attack cancer cells, including breast, lung, liver, and bladder cancers.
AI Advances in India
One WEF component—the Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR)—aims to harness emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality. In India, the organization says the Center is seeking to accelerate use of AI-based risk profiling to “help screen for common cancers like breast cancer, leading to early diagnosis.”
Researchers are also exploring the use of AI to “analyze X-rays to identify cancers in places where imaging experts might not be available.”
Using AI to Assess Lung Cancer Risk
Early-stage lung cancer is “notoriously hard to detect,” WEF observed. To help meet this challenge, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed an AI model known as Sybil that analyzes low-dose computed tomography scans to predict a patient’s risk of getting the disease within the next six years. It does so without a radiologist’s intervention, according to a press release.
Using Genomics to Identify Cancer-Causing Mutations
In what has been described as the “largest study of whole genome sequencing data,” researchers at the University of Cambridge in the UK announced they have discovered a “treasure trove” of information about possible causes of cancer.
Using data from England’s 100,000 Genomes Project, the researchers analyzed the whole genome sequences of 12,000 NHS cancer patients.
This allowed them “to detect patterns in the DNA of cancer, known as ‘mutational signatures,’ that provide clues about whether a patient has had a past exposure to environmental causes of cancer such as smoking or UV light, or has internal, cellular malfunctions,” according to a press release.
The researchers also identified 58 new mutational signatures, “suggesting that there are additional causes of cancer that we don’t yet fully understand,” the press release states.
The study appeared in April 2022 in the journal Science.
Validation of CAR-T-Cell Therapy
CAR-T-cell therapy “involves removing and genetically altering immune cells, called T cells, from cancer patients,” WEF explained. “The altered cells then produce proteins called chimeric antigen receptors (CARs), which can recognize and destroy cancer cells.”
The therapy appeared to receive validation in 2022 when researchers at the University of Pennsylvania published an article in the journal Nature noting that two early recipients of the treatment were still in remission after 12 years.
However, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced in 2023 that it was investigating reports of T-cell malignancies, including lymphoma, in patients who had received the treatment.
WEF observed that “the jury is still out as to whether the therapy is to blame but, as a precaution, the drug packaging now carries a warning.”
Breast Cancer Drug Repurposed for Prevention
England’s NHS announced in 2023 that anastrozole, a breast cancer drug, will be available to post-menopausal women to help reduce their risk of developing the disease.
“Around 289,000 women at moderate or high risk of breast cancer could be eligible for the drug, and while not all will choose to take it, it is estimated that if 25% do, around 2,000 cases of breast cancer could potentially be prevented in England, while saving the NHS around £15 million in treatment costs,” the NHS stated.
The tablet, which is off patent, has been used for many years to treat breast cancer, the NHS added. Anastrozole blocks the body’s production of the enzyme aromatase, reducing levels of the hormone estrogen.
Big Advance in Treating Cervical Cancer
In October 2024, researchers announced results from a large clinical trial demonstrating that a new approach to treating cervical cancer—one that uses currently available therapies—can reduce the risk of death by 40% and the risk of relapsing by 36%.
“This is the biggest improvement in outcome in this disease in over 20 years,” said Mary McCormack, PhD, clinical oncologist at the University College London and lead investigator in the trial.
The scientists published their findings in The Lancet.
Pathologists and clinical lab managers will want to keep track of these 12 breakthrough advancements in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer highlighted by the WEF. They will likely lead to new screening tests for the disease and could save many lives.
List also includes precision oncology, liquid biopsies, and early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer
Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers will be interested to learn that in a recently updated article the World Economic Forum (WEF) identified a dozen important recent breakthroughs in the ongoing fight to defeat cancer, including some related to pathology and clinical laboratory diagnostics.
The article noted that approximately 10 million people die each year from cancer. “Death rates from cancer were falling before the pandemic,” the authors wrote. “But COVID-19 caused a big backlog in diagnosis and treatment.”
The Swiss-based non-profit is best known for its annual meeting of corporate and government leaders in Davos, Switzerland. Healthcare is one of 10 WEF “centers” focusing on specific global issues.
Here are four advances identified by WEF that should be of particular interest to clinical laboratory leaders. The remaining advances will be covered in part two of this ebrief on Wednesday.
“Our study represents a major leap in cancer screening, combining the precision of protein-based biomarkers with the efficiency of sex-specific analysis,” said Novelna founder and CEO Ashkan Afshin, MD, ScD (above), in a company press release. “We’re not only looking at a more effective way of detecting cancer early but also at a cost-effective solution that can be implemented on a large scale.” The 12 breakthroughs listed in the World Economic Forum’s updated article will likely lead to new clinical laboratory screening tests for multiple types of cancer. (Photo copyright: Novelna.)
Novelna’s Early-Stage Cancer Test
Novelna, a biotech startup in Palo Alto, Calif., says it has developed a clinical laboratory blood test that can detect 18 early-stage cancers, including brain, breast, cervical, colorectal, lung, pancreatic, and uterine cancers, according to a press release.
In a small “proof of concept” study, scientists at the company reported that the test identified 93% of stage 1 cancers among men with 99% specificity and 90% sensitivity. Among women, the test identified 84% of stage 1 cancers with 85% sensitivity and 99% specificity.
The researchers collected plasma samples from 440 individuals diagnosed with cancers and measured more than 3,000 proteins. They identified 10 proteins in men and 10 in women that correlated highly with early-stage cancers.
“By themselves, each individual protein was only moderately accurate at picking up early stage disease, but when combined with the other proteins in a panel they were highly accurate,” states a BMJ Oncology press release.
The company says the test can be manufactured for less than $100.
“While further validation in larger population cohorts is necessary, we anticipate that our test will pave the way for more efficient, accurate, and accessible cancer screening,” said Novelna founder and CEO Ashkan Afshin, MD, ScD, in the company press release.
Precision Oncology
According to the National Institutes of Health’s “Promise of Precision Medicine” web page, “Researchers are now identifying the molecular fingerprints of various cancers and using them to divide cancer’s once-broad categories into far more precise types and subtypes. They are also discovering that cancers that develop in totally different parts of the body can sometimes, on a molecular level, have a lot in common. From this new perspective emerges an exciting era in cancer research called precision oncology, in which doctors are choosing treatments based on the DNA signature of an individual patient’s tumor.”
“These advanced sequencing technologies not only extend lifespans and improve cure rates for cancer patients through application to early screening; in the field of cancer diagnosis and monitoring they can also assist in the formulation of personalized clinical diagnostics and treatment plans, as well as allow doctors to accurately relocate the follow-up development of cancer patients after the primary treatment,” Wang wrote.
Based in China, Genetron Health describes itself as a “leading precision oncology platform company” with products and services related to cancer screening, diagnosis, and monitoring.
Liquid and Synthetic Biopsies
Liquid biopsies, in which blood or urine samples are analyzed for presence of biomarkers, provide an “easier and less invasive” alternative to conventional surgical biopsies for cancer diagnosis, the WEF article notes.
These tests allow clinicians to “pin down the disease subtype, identify the appropriate treatment and closely track patient response, adjusting course, if necessary, as each case requires—precision medicine in action,” wrote Merck Group CEO Belén Garijo, MD, in an earlier WEF commentary.
The WEF article also highlighted “synthetic biopsy” technology developed by Earli, Inc., a company based in Redwood City, Calif.
As explained in a Wired story, “Earli’s approach essentially forces the cancer to reveal itself. Bioengineered DNA is injected into the body. When it enters cancer cells, it forces them to produce a synthetic biomarker not normally found in humans.”
The biomarker can be detected in blood or breath tests, Wired noted. A radioactive tracer is used to determine the cancer’s location in the body.
“Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers,” the WEF article notes. “It is rarely diagnosed before it starts to spread and has a survival rate of less than 5% over five years.”
The test is based on a technology known as high-conductance dielectrophoresis (DEP), according to a UC San Diego press release. “It detects extracellular vesicles (EVs), which contain tumor proteins that are released into circulation by cancer cells as part of a poorly understood intercellular communication network,” the press release states. “Artificial intelligence-enabled protein marker analysis is then used to predict the likelihood of malignancy.”
The test detected 95.5% of stage 1 pancreatic cancers, 74.4% of stage 1 ovarian cancers, and 73.1% of pathologic stage 1A lethally aggressive serous ovarian adenocarcinomas, they wrote.
“These results are five times more accurate in detecting early-stage cancer than current liquid biopsy multi-cancer detection tests,” said co-senior author Scott M. Lippman, MD.
Look to Dark Daily’s ebrief on Wednesday for the remainder of breakthroughs the World Economic Forum identifies as top advancements in the fight to defeat cancer.
Underfunding of clinical laboratories has led to similar worker walkouts in multiple Australasian nations
Once again, cuts in government spending on pathology services has forced healthcare workers to walk off the job in Australia. This is in line with other pathology doctor and clinical laboratory workers strikes in New Zealand and other Australasian nations over the past few years.
Announcement of a planned closure of the pathology laboratory at 30-bed Cootamundra Hospital in Australia to make room for expanding the emergency department spurred the health worker walkouts.
“Health staff from Cootamundra Hospital, alongside pathology workers from Deniliquin, Tumut, Griffith, Wagga Wagga, and Young will rally in front of their respective facilities” to draw attention to the effect closing the lab would have on critical healthcare services across those areas, Region Riverina reported.
The strikes are drawing attention to unfair pay and poor working conditions that underfunding has brought to the state-run healthcare systems in those nations. They also highlight how clinical laboratories worldwide are similarly struggling with facility closings, unfair pay, and unachievable workloads.
“The proposed closure of Cootamundra’s pathology lab is a short-sighted decision that will have far-reaching consequences for patient care in the region,” NSW Health Services Union (HSU) Secretary Gerard Hayes (above) told Region Riverina. Similar arguments have been made for years concerning the underfunding, pay disparities, and poor working conditions in New Zealand’s government-run clinical laboratories and pathology practices that has led to worker strikes there as well. (Photo copyright: HSU.)
Australia Pathology Lab Closure Stokes Fears
Cootamundra Hospital’s strike was spurred by a planned closure of its pathology laboratory. In May, employees learned of the plans to close the lab as well as surgery and birthing centers to accommodate expansion of the emergency department, Region Riverina reported.
“Pathology workers are already in short supply and this move could see us lose highly skilled professionals from the NSW Health system altogether,” New South Wales (NSW) Health Services Union (HSU) Secretary Gerard Hayes told Region Riverina.
The cuts would not only be detrimental to the area, it would significantly affect patient care, he added.
“This lab is not just profitable; it’s a vital lifeline for Cootamundra Hospital’s [surgical] theater lists and maternity unit,” he said. “Without this lab, patients will face significantly longer wait times for life-saving diagnostic information. This delay could severely impact our ability to provide timely care, especially in emergencies.”
Echoing those sentiments, HSU Union Official Sam Oram told Region Riverina that closing the Cootamundra Hospital lab would put pressure on labs in Wagga and Young and would continue a trend of closing smaller pathology labs. Oram, who organizes for members in Canberra and Murrumbidgee Local Health District, noted that smaller labs in Tumut and Deniliquin could be in danger as well.
“Why should people living in rural and regional areas have fewer and inferior services to Australians living in metropolitan areas?” Michael McCormack, MP, Federal Member for Riverina and former deputy prime minister of Australia, asked Parliament in June, Region Riverinareported. “There’s no right or proper answer to that question. They simply should not,” he added.
Tasmania’s Troubles
Medical scientists recently walked off the job at Launceston General Hospital in Tasmania, Australia, to protest “the government’s ‘inaction’ on recruiting more staff,” according to Pulse Tasmania. The hospital’s lab has a staff shortage of 17 employees, requiring the remaining staff members to handle a much increased workload, Ryan Taylor, a medical laboratory scientist with the Tasmanian Department of Health, told Pulse Tasmania.
“This shortfall is leading to significant and unacceptable challenges … which are causing the Tasmanian community from receiving vital test results that are essential for their health,” Lucas Digney, Industrial Champion, Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) leader, told Pulse Tasmania.
New Zealand Struggles with Its Healthcare Workers
Aotearoa, as New Zealand is known by its indigenous Polynesian population, also struggles with health worker walkouts.
“Medical labs are an essential organ of the health system. Many were stupidly privatized years ago, others still operate within Te Whatu Ora [aka Health New Zealand, the publicly funded healthcare system] with all the resource shortages and stress that go with that,” Newsroom said of the country’s plight in 2023. “There was a view that competition in medical labs would produce greater efficiency, but it has actually produced a mess.”
Dark Daily has covered the ongoing strife in New Zealand’s clinical laboratories over many years. Previous ebriefs highlighted how the strikes were causing delays in critical clinical laboratory blood testing and surgical procedures.
Underfunding in clinical laboratories continues to cause work stoppages in the Australasian countries. But as Dark Daily readers know, it is a growing problem among European nations and in the United States as well.
Clinical laboratory executives and pathology leaders may want to develop strategies for supporting the growing numbers of at-home screening and diagnostic test users
Findings of a national poll conducted by the University of Michigan (U-M) exploring consumers’ purchases suggests seniors are becoming more comfortable with ordering and using at-home medical testing. Their choice of tests and opinions may be of interest to clinical laboratory executives, pathologists, and primary care physicians considering programs to support self-test purchasers.
The researchers found that 48% of adults, ages 50 to 80, purchased at least one at-home medical test, and that 91% of the buyers indicated intentions to purchase another test in the future, according to a U-M news release.
In their paper, they note that “validity, reliability, and utility of at-home tests is often uncertain.” Further, understanding and responding to test results—especially since caregivers may not have ordered them—could lead to “a range of unintended consequences,” they wrote.
“As a primary care doctor, I would want to know why my patient chose to take an at-home test that I didn’t order for them. We also need to understand in greater detail why folks use at-home tests instead of traditional means, beyond convenience,” said the U-M study’s lead author Joshua Rager, MD, a research scientist at William M. Tierney Center for Health Services Research at Regenstrief Institute, who is now an assistant professor of medicine, Indiana University, in a news release. The findings of the U-M study will be of interest to clinical laboratory executives and pathology leaders. (Photo copyright: Regenstrief Institute.)
Free COVID-19 Tests Ignite At-Home Testing
In their Journal of Health Care paper, the U-M researchers speculate that curiosity in at-home testing may have been propelled by the offer of free COVID-19 tests by the US government starting in 2021 during the pandemic.
They also noted the different ways at-home test kits are performed by healthcare consumers. Some, such as COVID-19 rapid antigen tests, return results to users in a few moments similar to pregnancy tests. Others involve self-collecting specimens, such as a stool sample, then sending the specimen to a clinical laboratory for analysis and results reporting to physicians.
Of those older adults who participated in U-M’s National Poll on Healthy Aging study, the following bought at-home medical tests online or from pharmacies and supermarkets, according to U-M’s paper:
As to perceptions of at-home medical testing by users, when polled on their test experience, the surveyed seniors reported the following:
75.1% perceived at-home medical tests to be more convenient than conventional medical tests.
59.9% believe the tests “can be trusted to give reliable results.”
54.8% believe the tests “are regulated by government.”
66% called them a “good value.”
93.6% indicated results “should be discussed with my doctor.”
Inconsistency in how people shared test results with their healthcare providers was a concern voiced by the researchers.
“While nearly all patients who had bought an at-home cancer screening test shared the results with their primary care provider, only about half of those who tested for an infection other than COVID-19 had. This could have important clinical implications,” the researchers wrote in their paper.
Confusion over Government Regulation
The U-M study also revealed consumer misunderstanding about government regulation of at-home clinical laboratory tests purchased over-the-counter.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared “some diagnostic at-home tests for over-the counter use. But many tests on the market are unregulated or under-regulated,” the authors wrote, adding, “Our results suggest, however, that patients generally believe at-home tests are regulated by government, but a substantial minority did not, which may reflect public confusion in how at-home testing is regulated.”
Women, College-Educated Buy More At-Home Tests
Purchase of at-home tests varies among groups, as follows, the news release noted:
56% and 61% of older adults with a college degree or household income above $100,000, respectively, were “much more likely” to buy at-home tests than people in other income and education brackets.
87% of women would buy at-home tests again compared with 76% of men.
89% of college-educated people would purchase the tests again, compared with 78% of people with high school educations or less.
Future U-M research may explore consumers’ awareness/understanding concerning federal regulations of at-home testing, Rager noted.
“At-home tests could be used to address disparities in access to care. We hope these findings will inform regulators and policymakers and spark future research on this topic,” he said in the news release.
The U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation survey results confirm that the country’s senior generations are becoming comfortable with at-home and self-testing options. As Dark Daily has previously suggested, clinical laboratories may want to develop service offerings and a strategy for supporting patients who want to perform their own lab tests at home.
