The Future Practice of Laboratory Medicine

This chapter discusses many of the external forces affecting clinical pathology and makes predictions about the best way for the field to respond by positioning itself to thrive in the decades to come. Given the increasing role of laboratory medicine in healthcare, the development of automation, the likely increases in test utilization, and the ease with which laboratory data can be collected and organized, the value of artificial intelligence to pathology is difficult to overstate. As hospitals and laboratories recover from the cumulative shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, several general principles may be helpful for any pathology department. Finally, as the number of tests increases, the clinical and operational insights determined with this information increase rapidly, and pathology departments will use machine learning algorithms to glean understanding, all while working from home or elsewhere away from the office or hospital.