October is Children’s Health Month, an opportunity to highlight the important role laboratory medicine plays in ensuring children receive accurate diagnoses, appropriate treatment, and high-quality care. ADLM continues to advocate for policies that strengthen pediatric laboratory testing and address gaps in the tools and resources healthcare professionals rely on to care for children.
A major focus of this work is improving pediatric reference intervals (PRIs), the ranges healthcare professionals use to determine whether a child’s laboratory result is normal or abnormal. Because children undergo significant physiological changes from infancy through adolescence, they need reference intervals that reflect their age and stage of development. However, many pediatric tests still lack sufficiently precise reference intervals. ADLM has worked with other healthcare and pediatric organizations to raise awareness of this issue on Capitol Hill and advocate for federal support to improve the development and implementation of PRIs.
Those efforts have helped build congressional support for addressing this longstanding gap in pediatric testing. This year, the House Labor-HHS appropriations bill included $5 million for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to support pediatric reference intervals. ADLM has also brought laboratory, pediatric, and public health experts to Capitol Hill to educate congressional staff about the challenges surrounding pediatric testing and opportunities to strengthen the nation’s pediatric diagnostic infrastructure.
ADLM will continue its congressional outreach on October 13 with a briefing on AI, Laboratory Medicine, and the Changing Healthcare Environment. The briefing will examine how artificial intelligence is changing laboratory medicine and patient care, including a case study focused specifically on AI and children’s health. Speakers include Dennis J. Dietzen, PhD, Chair of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Phoenix Children’s Hospital; Sarah Wheeler, PhD, Clinical Pathology Medical Director at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh; and Stephen Master, MD, PhD, Vice Chair for Innovation in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The discussion will give congressional staff an opportunity to hear directly from laboratory experts about how AI is being used in healthcare and the policy considerations surrounding its safe and effective use, including for pediatric patients.
ADLM’s advocacy on children’s health also includes supporting strong newborn screening programs and federal investments that help states identify serious conditions in infants as early as possible. More broadly, ADLM continues to advocate for policies that recognize the unique laboratory needs of pediatric patients and ensure healthcare professionals have access to reliable laboratory information when making decisions about their care.
Throughout Children’s Health Month, ADLM will highlight these priorities and the work underway to improve laboratory testing for children. Through continued engagement with Congress, federal agencies, and partner organizations, ADLM is working to advance policies that strengthen pediatric testing and improve care for children.