By Peter Hu, PhD, MS, MLS(ASCP)^CM,  CG^CM, MB^CM, FACSc, President, NAACLS Board of Directors

An edited version of Dr. Hu’s message will be published in the NAACLS 2019 Annual Report later this spring. However, we present his message to you at this time as it contains timely information.

Greetings, colleagues! It is time for the NAACLS’ annual “Message From the President.” This is a summary of some of the top activities during this past year.

In the past year, NAACLS continued to offer timely workshops and articles and to plan for new ones based on frequently asked questions. Various published articles such as “Volunteer Week – The NAACLS Site Visit: Tricks-Of-The-Trade” to “Volunteer Week – The Importance of the Self-Study Summary Page” were written to help both the site visit team and the program for a successful site visit process. In addition, we have continued to offer excellent workshops near the headquarters and at CLEC of which many were to “sold out” audiences. These continued events are some of the ways that NAACLS maintains the highest quality on the standard of practices offered in order to maintain successful accreditation and approval processes. To ensure this, our workshop presenters are usually veteran site visitors and/or experienced committee members from the Review Committee on Accredited Programs (RCAP) and Programs Approval Review Committee (PARC).

With the retirement of experienced veterans and promotions of “new” individuals into the role of program directors, the Board of Directors has expressed concern that additional support is required for our programs. To better serve everyone, NAACLS will have an exhibit booth at CLEC to help answer questions. Please stop and see us!

As always, NAACLS cannot do its job without dedicated volunteers. We continue to seek volunteers to be self-study reviewers, site visitors, RCAP/PARC/DRC committee members, and board members. If you have any interest, please check the information on the NAACLS website. We look forward to others joining the team. One of the benefits of volunteering is learning how others have created the top notch programs accredited and approved by NAACLS.  A recent call out for committees was sent in October 2019.  There are 2 Board of Director positions, 7 RCAP positions, 3 PARC positions, and 2 DRC positions that will be coming up for elections. Nominations, which should include completed Candidate Fact Sheets and CVs, should be sent to the NAACLS office by January 15^th, 2020. Nominations may also be emailed to Mark Spence, Volunteer Services Manager.  For more information, please visit https://naaclsnews.org/2019/10/17/naacls-is-seeking-nominations-for-board-and-committee-roles-2/ .

The Accreditation Management System (AMS) project is currently paused awaiting a board appointed task force to review the current state of the project and its future direction. The initial meeting already took place in December and a 2^nd meeting will soon follow in January, 2020 with recommendations to the Board. Rest assured, we will move forward.

In other areas from the Board:

1. Minor edits to the interim report guidelines were approved for clarity and made effective immediately.
2. The DMS preamble (competencies) were again revised to reflect the emergence of next generation sequencing testing and bioinformatics. An important step to this change is the differentiation between the competencies in diagnostic molecular science professionals working in DMS laboratories and those medical laboratory scientists encountering molecular tests in their MLS disciplined laboratories e.g. blood bank, microbiology etc..
3. Approved for release for 30 days public comment were edits to standard II.B, IVA.1.D, and V.D. Results from proposed standards changes will be presented in the coming months.
4. Several policies related to DCLS programs were addressed. For more information, please visit NAACLS News “Board of Directors Update – September 2019” issue: https://naaclsnews.org/2019/10/29/naacls-board-of-directors-update-september-2019/

For those who are attending the CLEC meeting in Orlando, I look forward to robust discussions on laboratory education!