The Challenge
Each year, advances in laboratory medicine add significantly to the already lengthy menu of tests available to aid clinicians in their practice of medicine. The emerging field of personalized medicine alone promises to add thousands of new complex assays to the mix. Physicians and their patients rely on access to accurate and timely laboratory results to determine the most effective course for treatment. Having an adequate supply of well-trained laboratory professionals to staff our nation’s clinical laboratories is critical if we are to continue to be able to offer high quality health care to our citizens.

The Role of Laboratory Education Programs
The development of a well qualified workforce is a high priority issue for the ASCP, the premier laboratory organization for education and certification. Laboratory education programs that prepare students to become certified laboratory professionals are essential to ensure that our nation’s laboratories will have sufficient numbers of qualified staff in the future. Their role is particularly important now as the current demand for laboratory technologists and technicians outnumbers supply. Impending retirements coupled with an aging population that requires increasingly more services will likely cause this shortfall to worsen. However, those wishing to enter the field now are finding fewer education programs available to them.

The Statistics
Since 1975, nearly 500 accredited medical technology programs have closed across the country. For cytotechnolgists, the number of training programs has fallen 40%, from 65 programs in 1994 to just 39 active programs in 2008. Furthermore, the National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences (NAACLS) reports that 7 laboratory science programs and 17 medical laboratory technician programs across twenty states are at risk for closure this year.

A Tangible Solution
Action is required now if we are to meet current and future demand for laboratory professionals. To this end, ASCP supports a number of initiatives that focus on developing the laboratory workforce including reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) in 2009 with an enhanced authorization of $250 million (currently funded at $125 million) for the Community-Based Job Training Grants Program (CBJTG). This program serves as the model for restructuring the delivery of job training services in the Title 1 programs. In 2008, a $2 million CBJTG grant was awarded to a multi-institutional partnership in Minnesota to support two-year and four-year laboratory science programs. In addition, local industry offered a $1.2 million matching grant. ASCP feels that the CBJTG program offers a tangible solution to education programs under threat to close due to cuts in state funding.

ASCP's Efforts in Washington
ASCP also urged the Department of Health and Human Services to designate a portion of the $200 million available for Health Professions Training in the stimulus package to medical laboratory science students and medical laboratory training programs. This funding could be used to provide scholarships, loan repayments, and grants to programs for equipment. In addition, ASCP continues to urge Congress to reauthorize Title VII Allied Health Programs to include provisions that support laboratory training programs and students. Title VII funding could serve to stabilize the closure of education programs and help attract new students to the field.

ASCP has also lent its advocacy efforts on the local level to those programs risking closure, recently launching an advocacy campaign to save the Clinical Laboratory Science/Medical Technology Program at Arizona State University which is currently under consideration for closure by the school’s leadership. In less than 12 hours, ASCP members sent over 4,000 letters to the school’s President, Provost, Board of Regents, and selected member of the Arizona House and Senate. The program’s fate is still pending, but this effort served to enlighten the both the school and the state leadership the profound impact that closure of this facility would have on health care in that state.

Read dozens of other stories about the serious shortage of laboratory personnel in the US, and what the ASCP is doing to fight the problem here.