Learning guides

Build key competencies with our learning guide series that consists of educational resources for laboratory professionals that focus on crucial core laboratory topics.

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learning guides image
learning guides image

Cardiac

The Cardiac learning guide is an overview of the anatomy and physiology of a healthy heart. It also provides an explanation of the pathophysiology of two common conditions – acute coronary syndrome and heart failure. It reviews information on the role of cardiac biomarkers in the diagnosis, prognosis, risk stratification, and therapy monitoring of various heart conditions. The Guide is intended to serve the basic educational needs of healthcare professionals who are involved in the laboratory or who manage patients who have or are at risk of developing heart disease.

Clinical chemistry

The Clinical Chemistry learning guide focuses on clinical chemistry, which encompasses a wide variety of tests and is a major area of concentration in hospital and reference core laboratories. Clinical chemistry uses many different methodologies, manual and fully automated tests, examines both very common and esoteric analytes, mixes basic chemistry with biochemistry, engineering, informatics and other disciplines, and overlaps with other areas of concentration, in particular, toxicology and endocrinology.

Hematology

Several learning guides covering the fundamentals of hematology and coagulation have been developed to help seasoned clinical laboratory personnel refresh their knowledge, or provide introductory concepts for those that are new to clinical laboratory medicine. To learn more about our hematology solutions visit Hematology Analyzers and Systems.

Hematology Learning Guide
An overview of blood physiology, red and white blood cells, platelets and abnormalities associated with these cellular components. It also provides additional information regarding the clinical implications of the complete blood count (CBC) that may also require additional follow-up testing.

RBC Indices & Extended RBC Parameters Learning Guide 
Provides an overview of erythropoiesis, review traditional and advanced RBC indices & parameters and their clinical utility, and preanalytical variables and interfering substances affecting RBC count and indices.

Platelet Counting Learning Guide 
Provides an overview of platelet origin and function. The guide discusses the analytical characteristics of platelet counting methods that are determinant factors for their clinical use.

Analysis of Body Fluids Learning Guide 
Provides an overview of body fluid types, their composition, methods of analysis and clinical significance in disease diagnosis.

Quality Control in the Hematology Laboratory Learning Guide 
Provides basic quality control concepts in the hematology laboratory and how to use basic quality control procedures to ensure the best results from your analyzer.

Middleware Use & Operation Learning Guide
Serves as a primer and provides a basic overview of middleware, its use, capabilities and benefits in general laboratory operations, with a focus on applications in Hematology.

Coagulation Learning Guide
Covers the components that make up coagulation and the different hemostasis stages and how they form. Standard clinical screenings and testing procedures are also provided and how patterns found may lead to solid findings as well as follow up testing.

Hepatitis

Diagnosing the specific agent responsible for viral hepatitis can be difficult because the signs and symptoms of each type are similar. Furthermore, many individuals who contract the disease have few or no symptoms. Hepatitis presents a challenge to physicians who must try to integrate epidemiological, clinical, and serological data before making patient management decisions. Hepatitis learning guide presents a discussion of each type of viral hepatitis and how serological assessments of the patients can aid in differential diagnosis.

Protein

The Protein learning guide is an overview of the pathophysiological principles and the major disease states related to important serum proteins. It provides an understanding of clinically important serum proteins and their use in diagnosing and managing common clinical situations. It reviews the different important analytical techniques used to identify and quantify these proteins. It also describes approaches to standardizing or harmonizing protein assays. The guide is intended to be used as a reference for the application of clinical laboratory tests and interpretation of laboratory results.

Six sigma

The Six Sigma Based Quality Control learning guide provides the basics of statistical quality control (SQC) in a laboratory. SQC is an essential laboratory practice to ensure reported test results achieve the quality required for intended medical use. Analytical quality demands continue to increase as physicians and patients depend on test results for optimal diagnosis and treatment. Although modern highly automated systems provide many function checks to ensure proper operations to produce accurate results, no analytical system is perfectly stable. Laboratories need SQC to provide a final independent check to detect performance changes potentially causing medical errors.

Thyroid

The Thyroid Learning Guide serves the basic educational needs of health care professionals associated with thyroid function testing. Thyroid disease is the most prevalent endocrine disorder known. The onset of thyroid disease is often misunderstood by the patient. This is because the clinical manifestations of thyroid dysfunction vary considerably among patients in their characteristics and severity.

Successful diagnosis and management of thyroid disease requires close collaboration between the physician, clinical laboratory and the patient. This guide provides an overview of thyroid gland function and the diseases and treatments associated with thyroid gland dysfunction.

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