American Society for Clinical Pathology Awarded $631,983 Grant from the CDC to Strengthen the Laboratory Workforce

CDC OneLab Network Grant Positions ASCP’s Leadership in Advocating for the Medical Laboratory Workforce  

ASCP has been awarded an additional $631,893 grant as part of a three-year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to strengthen the laboratory workforce in the United States. This multi-year grant, which began in September 2022, has allowed ASCP to respond to public health emergencies and foster the development of a quality- and patient-centric community of practice. 

The Society has worked closely with the CDC to connect ASCP’s universe of more than 250,000 pathologists and laboratory professionals to the CDC OneLab Network. By harnessing the extensive technical expertise of ASCP members and staff as leading laboratory educators and advocates, this program will embody the mission of the CDC OneLab Initiative, and it will support the development of a sustainable learning community for the laboratory workforce using new and existing resources.   
 
“ASCP is proud to be part of the CDC’s OneLab initiative,” says ASCP CEO Blair Holladay, PhD, MASCP, SCT(ASCP)^CM. “The CDC initiated OneLab to create a central hub where, in the case of a public health emergency, medical and public health laboratory professionals can easily access the latest news and education on diagnostic practices, quality, and biosafety. ASCP’s involvement in the OneLab initiative is part of the Society’s comprehensive strategies to address the medical laboratory workforce shortage.”  

Successful programs that ASCP launched last year as the first part of the OneLab grant include: 

- Building Bridges Across the Laboratory Community, a webinar series highlighting the collaborative efforts of a variety of laboratories (academic, public health, research, reference, and clinical) to develop innovative strategies to address public health emergencies. Recordings are available at www.supportcdconelab.org.

- Micro-learning Series, a new approach to educate time-strapped adult learners by sending them an email every few days with a question pertaining to laboratory issues, such as effective test utilization or supply chain mitigation strategies. Recipients respond at their convenience and receive immediate feedback regarding their response to increase their knowledge and track their competence.    

- Negotiation and Advocacy Toolbox, providing practical education and tools to laboratory directors and managers so they can demonstrate the value of their laboratory to hospital administrators and others who make funding decisions. The intent is to support laboratory leaders to advocate for higher staff salaries, hiring additional staff, and assist with strategic salaries, hiring additional staff, and assist with strategic planning, quality improvement, and team building. This year, it has addressed the first two “pillars” of the program, enhancing laboratory visibility and creating a culture within the laboratory that nurtures the environment as the best place to work within pathology and laboratory medicine. The latter would be achieved by cultivating diverse, lifelong learners and the next generation of leaders within the laboratory field. 

“This type of toolbox to support the medical laboratory leaders has never been done before,” says ASCP President Marsha C. Kinney, MD, MASCP. “What is special about this toolkit is that it is comprehensive and was developed by three laboratory leaders and subject matter experts who were integral in developing the Leading Laboratories program, an initiative of ASCP and The Joint Commission. The toolbox utilizes workforce data ASCP has collected to support laboratory leaders in effectively advocating for their laboratories’ needs.”    

In Year 2 of the CDC OneLab grant, ASCP will expand the Building Bridges series by reaching out to an even broader range of laboratories, including animal health laboratories and public health laboratories.    

“With so many animal-borne disease outbreaks, it’s important that laboratories are sharing critical information and collaborating with each other,” says Ken Landgraf, MSc, Executive Director of ASCP’s Center for Global Health and Principal Investigator for the grant. “We are really creating a community to strengthen the workforce and improve public health.”   

Also in Year 2, ASCP will build out the Negotiation and Advocacy Toolkit, adding additional resources that address its three remaining pillars: Quality, Service and Growth, and Financials.  

Moving into the second year of this three-year grant, ASCP's efforts remain centered around strengthening the laboratory workforce, and maintaining our role as the go-to resource for laboratory advocacy.

ASCP actively demonstrates our StrongerTogether mission through its ability to quickly reach out to disseminate information to its members, to other groups with whom it partners, and to the Medical and Public Health Workforce Coalition which ASCP worked collaboratively to establish.