Strengthening Public Health in Wisconsin Through the Wisconsin Clinical Laboratory Network

Abstract

The Wisconsin Clinical Laboratory Network (WCLN) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison is a partnership of 138 clinical and public health laboratories (as of February 2019) coordinated by the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene. This article describes the WCLN, its current activities, and lessons learned through this partnership. A laboratory technical advisory group, which consists of representatives from clinical laboratories, provides clinical laboratory perspective to the WCLN and fosters communication among laboratories. Activities and resources available through the WCLN include annual regional meetings, annual technical workshops, webinars, an email listserv, laboratory informational messages, in-person visits by a WCLN coordinator to clinical laboratories, and laboratory-based surveillance data and summaries distributed by the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene. One challenge to maintaining the WCLN is securing continual funding for network activities. Key lessons learned from this partnership of more than 20 years include the importance of in-person meetings, the clinical perspective of the laboratory technical advisory group, and providing activities and resources to clinical laboratories to foster sharing of data and clinical specimens for public health surveillance and outbreak response.