Martin Myers
Dr Martin Myers MBE, FRCPath, BSc, PhD, DipCB, EuSpLM, CSci
Dr Myers has recently (semi) retired as a consultant Clinical Biochemist, and Laboratory Director of Clinical Biochemistry at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Preston, UK. He set up the Point of Care Testing Team, which he led for 30 years, introducing POCT throughout the whole Health Economy of Central Lancashire. During this time, he was the Associate Divisional Medical Director of Pathology for 4 years, Clinical Director of Pathology for 14 years, Lead Scientist for over 10 years.
Dr Myers is the Co-Clinical Lead for the NHSE Pathology Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) Programme, which has undertaken an evidenced-based review of Pathology services in England in order to improve quality and reduce unwarranted variation. The National Report was launched in 2022 and the GIRFT Clinical Team is now working on implementing the recommendations, including the effect of pre-analytical variables on results, and identifying what are the Analytical Performance Specifications for Decision Diagnostics such as HbA1c, PSA, CA125 etc. Recently, Dr Myers co-led a National investigation into the clinical effect of IVD performance. This has resulted in many recommendations and with a small group of colleagues, the Patient-Focussed Laboratory Medicine group has been formed to ensure that Laboratory performance is directly linked to Clinical effect. GIRFT and PFLM are patient focussed, ensuring a Clinical Quality Management System includes the impact of the Laboratory on Patient Care.
His interests include the use of automation, point of care testing and informatics in improving the quality of the diagnostic process and redesigning patient-focussed pathology delivery. He introduced the “Laboratory Anywhere” concept to ensure that diagnostics are delivered in a variety of locations both inside and outside the hospital ensuring that diagnostics are embedded in the patient pathway, from Hub to Home.
Topics
Getting It Right First Time for Both the Laboratory and the Patient
Failure Demand occurs when Critical Control Points are not identified, monitored and mitigated. Critical Control Point Failures throughout the whole Pathway can lead to errors, unnecessary further testing, increased pathway costs, delays and unnecessary patient anxiety. GIRFT identifies Unwarranted Variation throughout the whole process and includes the pre and post analytical phases as well as the analytical phase. A National Clinical Quality Management Framework, defining acceptable performance (Process and Analytical Performance Specifications), post market surveillance and escalation of poor performance, will ensure greater clarity of what is, and what is not acceptable performance. The National Clinical Quality Management Framework should be co-produced by Commissioners, Providers, EQA providers, Learned Societies, Regulators, Accreditors and Manufacturers and needs to be applied to all settings where Laboratory Medicine Testing is delivered, from Hub to Home. Laboratory Medicine needs to ensure that the Clinical Quality Management System is Patient-Focussed in addition to the Laboratory focus.