Texas Genetic Symposium

Went to that last weekend, it was pretty good, full day of lectures about genetic testing mostly from a laboratory perspective. It was interesting to see what people were thinking about in other areas of genetic testing, prenatal, molecular with cancer etc. One of the more intriguing points I had never experienced, with genetic testing for acquired abnormalities, the tests change so frequently based on factors the clinicians can’t be expected to follow, there is now a pretty big drive to add decision support to the ordering side.

I think molecular testing for cancer is probably on the forefront of needing these systems, but in a couple years I can absolutely see the need in other areas as well. Clinicians ordering the wrong test, or the non-ideal test when the test roster is increasingly complex and dynamic is already a problem. As labs add more and more tests that are specific to a patient’s personal medical history this will only become more of a problem. Happily decision support has been maturing without us for a while, so maybe it will be the solution we need.