Lab Matters Fall 2018 | Page 24

POLICY APHL, CDC Director Discuss New and Ongoing Priorities by Peter Kyriacopoulos, senior director, Public Policy Dr. Joanne Bartkus, APHL president and Minnesota Public Health Laboratory director, met with Dr. Robert Redfield, director, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on September 5, 2018. APHL Executive Director Scott Becker and Peter Kyriacopoulos, senior director, Public Policy, were also in the meeting. Dr. Redfield was quite generous with his time and spoke at length about his priorities for CDC that will lead to measureable improvements. Specifically, he is pursuing increased federal funding of $5 billion annually through incremental increases that will be directed to CDC core functions. Dr. Redfield detailed his interest in five categories of activity: data, laboratory, workforce, emergency response funding and comprehensive global health. Dr. Bartkus remarked that there is a strong laboratory component in all of those priorities, and that she is especially interested in data science—the focal area for her presidential term. She also made it clear that APHL and its members are looking forward to working with Dr. Redfield to accomplish his objectives. APHL will continue to provide updates on the progress of these improvements. n (from l to r): Scott Becker, Peter Kyriacopoulos, Dr. Joanne Bartkus and Dr. Robert Redfield Perform High Quality Newborn Screening With CLSI Early disease detection in newborns is critical. Timely newborn screening improves patient outcomes and can even prevent death. Give your staff the tools they need to perform the most up- to-date testing procedures with CLSI’s library of globally trusted standards. Perfect for training, the NBS01 DVD is a great way to show staff how to perform blood collection on filter paper. Learn more about CLSI’s newborn screening standards and the NBS01 DVD at clsi.org/nbs. 22 LAB MATTERS Fall 2018 PublicHealthLabs @APHL APHL.org