Updated guidance and best practices in clinical implementation of LC-MS/MS
6.0 ACCENT credits / Not eligible for CME
Sunday, July 27, 2025
All day course | 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. US Central Time
McCormick Place Chicago
Description
This course provides practical knowledge and skills specific to a clinical diagnostics LC-MS/MS laboratory. As virtually all LC-MS/MS testing is lab-developed and wide-spread adoption of the technology is relatively recent, there are details specific to LC-MS/MS which are not published or readily available. Faculty approach LC-MS/MS education from practical views of how to use the technology on a day-to-day basis, troubleshooting the challenges of keeping assays and instruments running. Contemporaneous best practice and regulatory guidance will be presented, including CAP checklist updates, CLSI standards (eg C62-A3 2025 revision), and updates from oversight/regulatory organizations as appropriate. Participants will be engaged in lectures, group discussion, and example exercises. Content is interactive; additional Q&A for addressing attendee-specific questions is provided during and after ADLM University. This highly interactive curriculum covers challenges in the execution and maintenance of clinical LC-MS/MS assays through the lens of best practice guidance, giving participants tools to improve turn-around-time, reduce errors, and increase quality. The instructors are recognized both for their expertise in clinical LC-MS/MS as well as for their engaging and interactive teaching style.
Target audience
This activity is designed for lab supervisors, lab directors (and/or assistant directors), lab managers (supervisory and/or non-supervisory), medical technologists, pathologists, and in-training individuals.
Presentation Level
Intermediate
Prerequisite knowledge
Attendees should have a working understanding of:
- LC-MS utilization in a clinical laboratory.
- Basic knowledge of medical laboratory quality control.
- The nature of laboratory-developed quantitative testing.
What to bring
A laptop or personal device for notetaking and audience participation.
Learning objectives
After participating in this course, participants will be able to:
- Identify critical components in LC-MS/MS procedures that create risks for clinical assay performance, and provide corrective actions to mitigate/remove such risks.
- Create strategies to address specific challenges that arise from LC-MS/MS analysis, particularly in the context of lab-developed testing.
- Implement current (2025) best practices in LC-MS/MS laboratories to ensure traceability and accuracy, while reducing assay down-time and turn-around times.
Skills you will gain
- Able to address changes that are inherent in an LC-MS laboratory.
- Ability to spot and correct common errors during LC-MS testing.
- Up-to-date on best-practice approaches to LC-MS testing.
Faculty
Brian Rappold, BS | Labcorp
Russell Grant, PhD | Labcorp
Course outline
The course covers the life cycle of LC-MS/MS assays, instruments, and the staff who use them in a highly participatory approach, using an interactive, Socratic teaching format, as well as group discussion. Exercises are embedded in the material for team-based evaluations that are particularly pertinent where the diversity of challenges are broad. The instructors of the course have a teaching style that allows them to address specific needs/questions of participants beyond those listed. Additional topics of interest to the group will be collected throughout the course and participants can receive guidance that is customized to their particular clinical LC-MS/MS challenges. Sections addressing updated best practice or regulatory guidance will be addressed in light of proposed revisions to CLSI C62.
The course is broadly divided into four categories.
- Components of quality
Our expert instructors will guide participants through the critical components of quality in LC-MS/MS including defining quality in an LC-MS/MS context, mechanisms to identify quality metrics, and using quality metrics to reduce error.
- Operational considerations
Instructions will use real-world examples and audience participation to cover analytical and non-analytical challenges as well as their solutions in LC-MS/MS.
(90 min) Lunch break own your own
Limited lunch options will be available at the convention center.
- Dealing with change
Instructions will cover changes that are inherent to an LC-MS/MS lab including laboratory developed test reagents, staffing issues, and growth management.
- Troubleshooting strategies
Instructors will provide experiences advice and approaches to troubleshooting LC-MS/MS issues including “divide and conquer” and “external service” strategies.
