Dear all,

IFCC, in collaboration with the Clinical Laboratory Management Association (CLMA) and other supporters, is pleased to present the "Increasing Clinical Effectiveness Award 2016/17".

ICE Award is open to any laboratory medicine specialist. He/she is invited to submit an abstract that describes testing-related interventions and the quantifiable positive impact for patients that they produced. The winners of the ICE Award in 2016/17 will be invited to present their work as part of an IFCC symposium at the IFCC – EFLM EuroMedLab congress in Athens on Tuesday 13 June 2017.

Deadline to present an abstract is 30 September 2016.

All further information is contained in the attached letter.

Dear members,

The IFCC eAcademy is an open educational resource containing distance-learning materials created and/or reviewed by IFCC experts for the continuous professional training development of members of IFCC member organizations. Up to now, these educational materials are composed of about 45 videos available only in English. To facilitate access to this knowledge to a greater number of professionals, IFCC has initiated a project of collaborative translation of these videos to Spanish which means that a large number of people work simultaneously in the translation of videos from English to Spanish.

If you speak English and Spanish (whatever it is your mother or second language), we invite you to contribute to this IFCC project of collaborative translation as a collaborator or reviewer. Those who only speaks English can also help participating in this project by making the video transcript.

Please find the details about this project here.

Committee for information and public relations

Dear Members,

Course"Developing medical tests that improve patient outcomes" will be held 9-11.11.2016. in Leiden, Netherlands. Secure your spaceat this course delivered by the EFLM Test Evaluation Working Group with keynote speakers Rita Horvath, Patrick Bossuyt, Sverre Sandberg, Sally Lord, Phillip J Monaghan and many others.

Click here to access the registration on line.

Laboratory medicine has a poor record bringing new tests to market in a timely and effective way. Evidence based laboratory medicine (EBLM) provides the underlying principles for how a new biomarker should go through the test evaluation process but these principles alone do not appear to have guided better evaluation. This course aims to address that gap by extending the principles of EBLM to provide some practical tools for the key processes of test evaluation.

Key features of 2½ day course:

The course will be interactive and talks by keynote speakers will be followed by practical assignments.

• Test evaluation – definitions and basic concepts
• Tools to conduct test evaluation including:
  • Talks to highlight the differing perspectives and experience of key stakeholders and experts in test evaluation
  • Practical assignments to understand the use of test evaluation tools.

Target Audience:

• Qualified laboratory professionals
• Researchers involved in biomarker development and test evaluation
• Clinicians involved in biomarker use and evaluation in clinical practice
• Healthcare company and regulatory representatives

For further information, visit the course website.

Committee for information and public relations