TABLE 7.

Stakeholders, values, and concerns relevant to clinical laboratory (13)

Stakeholder	Values	Concerns
Patients	Prompt, effective care for their illness	Will my illness be diagnosed and treated as rapidly and effectively as possible? Will the possibility that I’m infectious make providers reluctant to care for me?
Front-line providers	Care for their patients; Personal safety	Will I be able to get effective diagnostic support for clinical care? Will I know rapidly if a patient is infectious? Will I know rapidly if a patient is NOT infectious? Should I treat these patients?
Health care system administrators	Efficient, effective care for all patients served by system; Financial stability of the system	Will procedures for handling potentially infectious patients impact care of others? Will handling infectious patients impact the system efficiency, throughput, or access? Should we accept these patients or send them to the facility down the road?
Front-line laboratory workers	Patient care; Personal safety	How will handling potentially infectious specimens impact my workflow? How infectious are these specimens? How effective are engineering and administrative controls, and PPE against this novel and mysterious pathogen? Should I agree to handle these specimens?
Laboratory management	Patient care; Staff safety; Laboratory operations	How do we maintain services while handling potentially contaminated specimens? Should we implement diagnostics for the emerging threat? If so, how? Should we accept specimens from potentially infectious patients? If so, for what testing? What controls should we impose on such specimens? How will handling potentially or actually infectious specimens impact laboratory operations? Can we handle the increased complexity and workload? What is the risk of environmental contamination of the laboratory, and what impact would it have?
Public health authorities	Public health	Will diagnoses of emerging pathogens be available in a timely manner? Will laboratories effectively contain pathogens, or will they become new sources of infection?Will the work be in compliance with applicable regulations regarding dangerous pathogens?”
The public at large	Personal safety; Public health	Is my neighbor, the clinical or public health laboratory worker, safe to be around? How do we know if people are infected? How do we know if it is spreading?