A New Era of Diagnostics
A New Era of Diagnostics
Health care almost always begins with a diagnostic work-up: listening to the patient’s complaint and history, examining the patient, and testing. It’s the point when the physician determines, via some form of observation or measurement, that there’s been a change in the patient’s anatomy or physiology. And in many cases the news of a diagnosis from the physician changes the patient’s life. The scope of diagnostic testing can be quite broad, including screening for disease or predisposition to disease in the general population or those assumed to be at low risk, tests applied to individuals who are high risk or symptomatic to confirm a diagnosis, staging tests for when the diagnosis is known but the extent of disease is not, and monitoring of the disease course or effect of therapy.
[SR-821B]
Publication Date
December 2003