The 2023 AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo was a platform to showcase groundbreaking innovations shaping the future of clinical testing and patient care. 

At this year’s event, we identified three emerging trends in healthcare innovation; all centered around access to healthcare in their own way. These trends captured our attention, hinting at exciting possibilities for the future of medical progress. Here, we highlight these noteworthy developments that could reshape patient care and diagnostics.

Point of Care: Enhancing Patient-Centric Healthcare Delivery

The evolution of healthcare is witnessing a remarkable shift towards point-of-care, which brings medical diagnostics and treatments directly to the clinic, home, or care facility. 

This proximity reduces the time and inconvenience associated with traditional hospital visits and fosters a more patient-centric approach. 

Point-of-care solutions encompass a wide range of portable and user-friendly medical devices, empowering healthcare professionals to diagnose and treat various conditions on-site swiftly. As the point-of-care ecosystem expands, it paves the way for more personalized and timely interventions, ultimately redefining how healthcare is experienced and delivered.

Hilab launched a unique point-of-care Hemogram device at this year's event—the world's only instrument capable of providing a comprehensive blood count using AI and other cutting-edge technologies within 30 minutes. It can facilitate numerous tests for phosphorus, magnesium, cholesterol, Vitamin D, and even for detecting Malaria.

Werfen, a specialized diagnostics leader, offered in-booth demonstrations of its point-of-care and laboratory instruments, including its ChemSTAT in-vitro diagnostic (IVD) whole-blood analyzer. The ChemSTAT is designed for rapid basic metabolic panel (BMP) testing at the point of care, primarily in hospital emergency departments, and provides laboratory-quality results in less than 70 seconds. This service can aid in the timely triage and management of high-risk, acutely ill patients diagnosing acute conditions, such as kidney injury, sepsis and septic shock, and diabetic ketoacidosis.

Promoting Health Equity: Addressing Disparities through Innovative Medical Technologies

Health equity remains a pressing concern within the healthcare landscape, highlighting the need for innovative solutions to bridge the gap in access and outcomes regardless of an individual’s background, socioeconomic status, or racial or ethnic identity. 

Unfortunately, a stark example of health inequity is evident in the higher maternal mortality rates among black mothers, disproportionately more likely to die from childbirth than their white counterparts. 

Tragic incidents, such as the untimely death of track and field star Tori Bowie during childbirth due to eclampsia and respiratory distress (preventable if detected early), underscore the urgent need to address these disparities.  

Advanced medical devices and point-of-care technologies hold the potential to mitigate such instances by enabling early detection and intervention. 

For example, Thermo Fisher Scientific unveiled a set of FDA-approved blood tests that have the potential to enhance the early identification and management of preeclampsia significantly. This pregnancy-related complication has risen in the United States in recent years.

AI and Machine Learning Power In-vitro Diagnostics for Biomarker Prediction

Sometimes the convergence of separate innovations is more impactful than either independently. In healthcare, we see this with increased access to useful biomarkers that represent the state of health and artificial intelligence tools that can pull inferences from their presence or absence. 

Diagnostics of the future are being reshaped by companies represented at AACC. A great example is the Provencio HART test, a panel focused on cardiovascular health.

By analyzing vast datasets and identifying intricate patterns, AI-driven diagnostics can aid in early disease detection, predicting health trends, and suggesting personalized treatment regimens. 

This predictive capability holds substantial potential in reducing health disparities by identifying high-risk populations and tailoring interventions to address specific needs, thereby contributing to improved patient outcomes and more equitable healthcare delivery.

In another example, Siemens Medical Solutions unveiled an innovative AI model to forecast the probability of an individual developing multiple sclerosis (MS). By analyzing a patient's age, gender, blood markers, and metabolic composition over a span of three years, this pioneering predictive model holds the promise of enabling earlier treatment initiation, slowing the disease’s progression.

Forging a Future of Healthcare Excellence

The AACC 2023 Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo provided a platform that underscored the transformative potential of patient care. 

These trends reflect a future where healthcare is not only advanced in terms of technology but is also more inclusive and accessible, striving to provide optimal care for every individual.