Michael Lee Astion

My work is divided between clinical service, teaching, and research and development. For my clinical service, I am the Director of the Reference Laboratory Services, and the Associate Director of the Chemistry, Immunology, and Medical Informatics Divisions in the Department of Laboratory Medicine. The main mission of the Reference Laboratory is to provide timely, accurate laboratory results to UW outpatient locations and to our UW outreach clients, who are located throughout the northwest.

I am currently pursuing two kinds of research and development. First, I am involved in a number of projects related to patient safety and the clinical laboratory. This involves detecting and reducing incidents in which lab testing problems negatively impact patient care. I am also the Editor-In-Chief of "Laboratory Errors and Patient Safety" (www.laboratoryerrors.org), a newsletter dedicated to this topic. In addition, I am involved in the development of training and competency assessment software for clinical laboratories and laboratory training programs. he software is currently produced and distributed in collaboration with Medical Training Solutions (www.medtraining.org), which is a company that spun out of the University of Washington in 2001.

My teaching focuses on the use and interpretation of clinical laboratory tests. I am currently the Course Director for Lab M 685 which is a general laboratory testing course for 4th year medical students and first year pathology residents. In addition, I am the director of the Department's CME course entitled 'Lab Testing Update for Primary Care', and I participate in other continuing education courses for physicians and nurses.

Clinical Protein Electrophoresis

Autoantibody testing

Optimizing Clinical Laboratory Utilization

Intellectual Property Management Advisory Committee, University of Washington

My future research will be aimed at better methods of detecting and reducing laboratory errors, and using our competency assessment website to estimate nationnal competency assessment for clinical laboratory personnel in 15 different areas of laboratory service.

My research in patient safety is relevant to medical malpractice, and it is also relevant to the laboratory testing industry as a whole. In addition, many of the topics I teach about are useful for training sales and technical staff in in-vitro diagnostics companies, and I have been involved in such training over the last 10 years.

The University of Washington Laboratory Training and Competency Assessment Library consisting of:

1994: Gram Stain-Tutor computer program
1995: Gram Stain-Review computer program
1995: Peripheral Blood-Tutor computer program
1995: Peripheral Blood-Review computer program
1995: Urinalysis-Tutor computer program
1995: Urinalysis-Review computer program
1997: Microscopy-Tutor computer program
1997: Parasite-Tutor computer program
1997: Nail-Tutor computer program
1998: Mycology-Tutor computer program
1998: Phlebotomy-Tutor computer program
2001: Body-Fluids-Tutor computer program
2002: Advanced venipuncture computer program
2002: Pediatric phlebotomy computer program.
2002: Introduction to Laboratory Medicine computer program
2003: Specimen Processing-Tutor computer program.
2004: Orientation to Patient Safety computer program
2004: Autoimmune-Tutor computer program (transferred from Bio-Rad to Medical Training Solutions)
2004: Electrophoresis-Tutor computer program (transfer from Beckman-Coulter to Medical Training Solutions)
2005: Coagulation-Tutor computer program
2002 - present. Laboratory Competency Assessment computer program (currently 23 topics)

Description:
Gram Stain-Tutor teaches the interpretation of Gram-stained specimens of body fluids.
Peripheral Blood-Tutor teaches the interpretation of normal and abnormal Wright-stained peripheral blood smears.
Urinalysis-Tutor teaches the microscopic examination of urine sediment.
Microscopy-Tutor teaches the principles and practice of light microscopy.
Nail-Tutor teaches the anatomy, patterns of pathology and diseases of the nails.
Parasite-Tutor teaches the microscopic identification of clinically important parasites.
Mycology-Tutor teaches the identification of clinically important fungi.
Phlebotomy-Tutor teaches the essentials of phlebotomy, concentrating on procedures.
Advanced Venipuncture covers advanced phlebotomy techniques such as blood culture collection, and drawing blood from alternative sites and by alternative methods.
Pediatric phlebotomy covers the drawing of blood from infants, toddlers, and the older child.
Body Fluids-Tutor teaches the interpretation of laboratory studies on cerebrospinal fluid, serous fluids, synovial fluid, amniotic fluid, and seminal fluid.
Introduction to Laboratory Medicine is an overview of the field of clinical pathology.

The three review programs are add-in programs that provide additional competency assessment exams to their respective Tutors.
The Specimen Processing tutorial details the preanalytic aspects of laboratory testing with special emphasis on how to properly perform the duties of the specimen processing technician.
The Orientation to Patient Safety teaches basic principles of patient safety and teaches the design of quality improvement projects aimed at improving patient safety.
The coagulation tutorial teaches the physiology of hemostasis, common bleeding disorders and their laboratory evaluation.

The Laboratory Competency Assessment program allows labs to meet government regulations for assessing competency of laboratory personnel in 23 key areas of the laboratory. New examinations are made available in January and July of each year. Three specific examples include: Protein Electrophoresis competency assessment authored by Dr. Astion and administered since 2004, Patient Safety competency assessment authored by Dr. Astion and administered since 2004, and Urinalysis Competency assessment authored by Paul Henderson and Carla Phillips and administered since 2002.