![]()
8
| 3 | 2007
Klinisk Biokemi i Norden
Nytt från NFKK
Jarkko Ihalainen
Diagnostics and European
integration: a matter for
meetings!
During the last months we have
seen another wave of merger
and acquisition activity within
the IVD industry. Even though
all announced mergers have not
been carried through, the last
two years have been unusually
active for the mature industry supporting clinical
laboratories with instruments and methods. Very
recently we also heard news about an international
merger of laboratory organisations directly affec-
ting the Nordic area.
I suspect that this surge of industrial activity
teaches us a lesson: we do not work in a mature
industry. Even though we are not yet in the mole-
cular wonderland of predictive and personalised
medicine, modern information technology opens
new horizons to integration between diagnostic
specialities. The unholy marriage between radio-
logy and clinical chemistry has been most discus-
sed but personally I would imagine that in the
short term we get more practical solutions in spe-
cialities with pre-existing interfaces. That means
for example, that clinical physiology and clinical
chemistry may join again (in computer systems at
least) after a diaspora of some decades. Also bac-
teriology, virology and genetics have a common
history and now this history is being repeated in
reverse order when inventions in molecular gene-
tics become tools for routine microbiology.
The American management guru Michael Porter
has attempted to set a new agenda for healthcare
in his book “Redefining health care” (HBS Press,
2006). Together with his colleague Elizabeth O.
Teisberg he urges actors in the healthcare arena
to compete with the added value of therapeutic
paths to patients. What might this mean to clinical
laboratories?
A modern clinical laboratory serves a multitude
of customers. In the case of small laboratories, the
customers may be clinicians and patients only.
Larger centralised laboratories have different types
of organisation clients in addition to the person
clients. When and if the organisations caring for
the patients start competing with added value to
patients, laboratories must step into that process
and start defining their services not only in terms
of metrology and economics but also using the
languages of process engineering, social sciences
and humanities.
All the above mentioned activity is being regis-
tered and followed up by many of us. But we need
more. You can read the news from the Internet
and professional press. Distributor representatives
willingly take you somewhere to see applications.
But it takes personal communication with a broad
network of colleagues to make sense of all this and
interpret the megatrends to practical solutions in
your own laboratory.
It is very helpful if we share experience across
national borders. Understanding Your own posi-
tion may require comparison to another type of
situation. The Nordic countries form a good area
for sharing of knowledge because we have largely
common ethical value sets and levels of techno-
logy but there are differences in language and the
organisation of healthcare.
The organizing committee and the scientific
committee of the XXXI Nordic Congress of Clinical
Chemistry attempt to catch the spirit of the time
and present the different themes of progress to the
