President's Corner - Connect to Quality
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Some say that clinical DNA testing has become a commodity – that price should be the only factor in choosing a lab. But I don’t buy it. I think that quality is still very important in clinical DNA testing.
Comparing labs in terms of quality is difficult. It’s really hard for a client to distinguish a lab with say 95% correct reports to one with 99.7% correct reports (I define a correct report as one with no significant data errors and no major errors in interpretation). To accurately compare such labs one would need to send hundreds of tests and probably hire a third or even fourth lab to verify the results. A more practical approach might be to send a few particularly tough cases to multiple labs, but even that would be expensive, and as scientists, we know that drawing conclusions from limited data is unreliable.
So what is a client to do? Viewing the lab’s quality data is probably a good start. At PreventionGenetics, we transparently post our quality data to our web site. We also list on the web site many special features of our testing. As just one example, we perform a genotyping panel on each of our specimens which allows us to detect many labeling errors (specimen mixups), both external and internal. We find that roughly 1 out of every 500 specimens that comes to our lab is mislabeled. Labs without this special feature just blithely produce reports that are completely wrong. I doubt that any other lab offers all of the special quality features routinely provided by PreventionGenetics.
For those who want to dig even further, we monitor each month about 40 different lab quality metrics. This allows us to track trends in the lab and to fix small problems before they become big. We will be pleased to share these detailed quality metrics with our clients. My goal for PreventionGenetics is 99.9% correct reports. That’s a lofty goal, and I’m not sure we’re quite there yet, but we will continue to relentlessly pursue this target.
In this Newsletter, we announced several significant test price reductions. We are able to offer these reductions because of improved technology and methodology and because of higher test volumes. Since PreventionGenetics is located in a low cost area (Central Wisconsin), I expect that PreventionGenetics will continue to lead with relatively low test prices, but we will not sacrifice quality.
Is a lab with 95% correct reports really different from one with 99.7% correct reports? I think the 5% of patients receiving incorrect reports would definitely say yes. Value has been defined as quality divided by price. Unsurpassed quality coupled with low prices makes PreventionGenetics the very best value for your patients.
-James L. Weber, PhD
Founder & President, PreventionGenetics