903: New Lab Speeds Newborn Screening, Capitol Hill Efforts

SUMMER JOHNSON: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Friday, May 9, 2025. I'm Summer Johnson. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

ASHLEY GOSS: 

So, the new laboratory is equipped with numerous features to increase testing efficiency and allow our laboratorians to focus on their testing work and not administrative or tedious tasks, which was not the case in our old lab.

JOHNSON: 

That's Ashley Goss, deputy secretary for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. The department's new Health and Environment Laboratories improve the state's ability to respond to outbreaks and threats. Goss says the lab has electronic monitoring that has been a game changer.

GOSS: 

So, without that system, the staff would have to continue to physically monitor the temperatures throughout the day and record them on a paper or a spreadsheet, which is what we were doing previously.

JOHNSON: 

The lab uses an improved sample drop off station to quickly detect health issues in newborns.

GOSS: 

They can drop the samples off, and we can immediately get started on them, as soon as we have one of our laboratorians in, and they can go ahead and start the testing process on those newborn samples. And we bring those in every single day because they're critical to get done in a timely manner, as you know.

JOHNSON: 

She adds, there are plans in place to expand the capabilities of the lab.

GOSS: 

So, the Newborn Screening Lab Unit was built with growth in mind so we would be able to more than double the testing it's currently doing on our Health Chemistry side for newborn screening, should the need arise.

JOHNSON: 

You can head to the show notes for more information on the new KDHE Laboratories and its impact on the health of Kansans.

We've been introducing you to the ASTHO Government Affairs team through 'Get to Know ASTHO.' Here's Government Affairs Analyst Catherine Murphy on the team's impact.

CATHERINE MURPHY: 

GA does a lot. We just have a lot of plates spinning, which is something I'm really proud of, and it's something that we get to do, because we have three of us dedicated to this work.

JOHNSON: 

Murphy explains what brought her to the ASTHO team.

MURPHY: 

I remember being really interested in understanding why healthcare is so expensive and often ineffective, and why there's such a high burden of chronic disease, why there's such a high burden of infectious disease, like we have the flu go around every year, and other respiratory diseases in the winter, things like that. And so, in my undergrad experience, I again, stayed in my biochemistry major. I also minored in chemistry, but I added an additional minor in medicine and society, which was my first introduction to public health and studying things like cultural understandings of healthcare and, you know, health, geography, things like that.

JOHNSON: 

When it comes to the bulk of the team's work, relationship building is front and center.

MURPHY: 

We regularly meet with congressional staffers and share what their state's public health department is working on, highlight ASTHO's work, and then hear back from them what their member is prioritizing in public health and health policy. Congressional staffers have a lot on their plate, and often pretty large and varied issue portfolios, so it's important that they have advocates who can connect them with experts like the public health experts we know, like our state health officials and their employees, who can advocate for their fields and work in order to shape effective and functional legislation.

JOHNSON: 

Murphy discussed Government Affairs' wins.

MURPHY: 

Last year, we tracked a bumpy and still ongoing appropriation cycle for FY25. We had over 1800 interactions with staffers on Capitol Hill. We held 70 meetings with congressional staff and members. We responded to six requests for information from congressional offices or from committees to help inform legislation and work they're doing. We tracked 64 congressional hearings. We organized 'Hill Day' to connect our members again to their members of Congress, and we held meetings with HHS during Spring Leadership Forum.

JOHNSON: 

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more profiles of the ASTHO Government Affairs team.

Also today, which works out well for a Friday, a few celebrations. Congratulations to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. In April, they marked 120 years of improving health outcomes for all residents in the state.

And congratulations are also in order to the Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation of the Northern Mariana Islands, recipient of the 2025 Network of Practice Grant from the Bloomberg American Health Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation will implement a produce prescription program on the Island of Saipan to promote health in the community.

That'll do it for today. We're back Monday morning with more ASTHO news and information. I'm Summer Johnson, you are listening to the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great weekend.