26 January 2017

NRL builds on its 2016 accreditation success by being thought leaders at key medical and laboratory events in 2017, including Arab Health and MEDLAB – two of the largest healthcare congresses in the world and a UAE-first event held in collaboration with the Clinical and Laboratories Standards Institute (CLSI)

Abu Dhabi, 26 January 2017 - National Reference Laboratory (NRL), part of Mubadala’s network of world-class healthcare providers and managed by LabCorp^®, a world leading life sciences company, providing comprehensive clinical laboratory services, are demonstrating their commitment to continuing medical education for laboratory and other healthcare professionals by announcing their participation in a number of leading healthcare events in the first half of 2017, including two of the largest healthcare events in the world, Arab Health and MEDLAB.

Approximately 70 percent of medical decisions are influenced by laboratory tests, ordered to diagnose, treat, manage, and monitor a patient’s condition, requiring high levels of education and knowledge in order to ensure high quality of services, improved patients outcomes and reducing the unnecessary costs in the industry.

“In a region that faces unique healthcare challenges and where laboratory testing is a crucial plank of healthcare outcomes, the continuing education of current and future healthcare professionals in the science of laboratory medicine is a core theme of our company’s mission”, said Abdul Hamid Oubeisi, CEO of NRL. “In 2016 alone, we organized seven seminars for an impressive 400 delegates, with our medical and scientific team very active in speaking at conferences across the region in a bid to share their scientific findings, experiences and best practices in laboratory medicine, providing valuable knowledge for the attendees.”

“The continuing innovation and advancements in laboratory testing and technology are remarkable and it is our mission and duty to educate the laboratory professionals, physicians and patients about these exciting changes.  These advancements will only serve to facilitate faster diagnostic and more precise treatment decisions, which should ultimately increase the quality of care for our patients. As a partner of LabCorp, the world’s leading healthcare diagnostics company, and having one of the largest teams of locally-present laboratory experts, NRL is in the best position to assume its role as a thought leader in the region”, said Dr. Basel Altrabulsi, Chief Medical Officer of NRL.

As the largest College of American Pathologists (CAP)-accredited referral laboratory network in the Middle East, NRL is a thought leader in this field, and stressing the importance of accreditation and international standards in medical laboratory services is something NRL’s team continually communicate to the wider healthcare community. During 2016, the quality assurance team of NRL has successfully completed twelve accreditation inspections across the network of NRL laboratories, including nine first time accreditations, which stands as a remarkable and a unique accomplishment in the region. For the first time in the region, on 7 February, NRL will organize an educational event with CLSI, the leader in the development and implementation of clinical laboratory testing standards worldwide. This joint effort will further strengthen the capacities of NRL to deliver best in class, continuing medical education for laboratory professionals in the region.

NRL’s Director of Quality Assurance, Faisal Ibrahim, is giving a talk on ‘Managing Quality and Accreditation in a Large Laboratory Network’ during the first day of the MEDLAB Congress, running from 6-9 February in Dubai. Laboratory Accreditation will be the topic of one of the workshops  hosted by NRL at MEDLAB on 8 February, which will include other eminent experts in the field, such as Paul Stennett – CEO of UKAS (UK), Glen Fine, CEO of Clinical and Laboratories Standards Institute (CLSI) (USA), Dr. Maadh Aldouri, Director of International affairs at the UK’s Royal College of Pathologists (UK) and Dr. Laila Abdel Wareth – Chief of Clinical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Institute – Cleveland Clinics Abu Dhabi (UAE).

During MEDLAB, on 9 February, NRL, in cooperation with their partner LabCorp from the USA, is hosting a workshop of Coagulation Reference Testing, led by Michael Taylor, M.S., Associate Vice President of Laboratory Corporation of America - Colorado Coagulation. Special Coagulation is one of NRL’s Centers of Excellence that the company is working to establish during 2017.

Dr. Basel Altrabulsi, NRL’s Chief Medical Officer, will also be speaking at the MEDLAB Conference, giving a lecture on ‘Managing the anatomic pathology laboratory’ and ‘Update on molecular tests and their value in evaluating challenging lesions of thyroid FNAs; Dr. Frank Ryan, Technical Director will talk about ‘Laboratory screening and diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus’; Gagan Goel, IT Director will educate visitors on ‘Standardization of lab compendium and its management to obtain Computable Semantic Interoperability’; and Dr. Shereen Atef, Consultant Clinical Pathologist will be discussing ‘The evolving use of serum free light chain assays in clinical laboratory.’

For more information go to: http://www.medlabme.com/

Other events attended by NRL experts:

-       OBS/GYNE Exhibition & Conference – Dubai, 19 - 21 April 2017: http://www.obs-gyne.com/

Dr. Basel Altrabulsi, Chief Medical Officer

April 20TH 2017, Tumor Board – Case Discussion: Endometrial Cancers

ENDS