UTS-hosted international guest seminar: Defining genetic counselling processes & outcomes in the US

Dr. Heather Zierhut, Director of the Genetic Counseling Program at the University of Minnesota, USA

Biography:

Dr Zierhut’s research on the provision of genetic counseling services includes co-creating a framework for studying genetic counseling communication and improving access to genetic counseling in diverse communities through community based participatory research approaches. She leads the GC-PRO study (Genetic Counseling Processes Result in Outcomes) study and the GC-FIRST (Genetic Counseling Fellowship in ReSearch Training) program, designed to provide genetic counselors with the advanced training and research competency. For eight years she worked as a clinical genetic counselor and is a past President of the National Society of Genetic Counseling.

Seminar abstract:

To optimize quality and improve efficiency of care, the genetic counseling field must be able to measure genetic counseling processes and determine which are most critical to achieve positive patient outcomes. Given the vast number of possible process measures and outcomes that could be studied, a framework for organizing outcomes and postulating relationships between communication services and genetic counseling outcomes was created. In this presentation, I will describe the evolution of GC outcomes research in the US, outline the Framework for Outcomes of Clinical commUnication Services" (FOCUS) framework to hypothesize links between GC processes and outcomes, and identify gaps and ways to fill them in GC process research. I will bring the concepts together by describing a genetic counseling intervention using FOCUS that links process and outcomes to provide evidence to support the value of genetic counseling in screening and family communication for Familial Hypercholesterolemia. Finally, I will review the GC-PRO study (Genetic Counseling Processes Result in Outcomes) which partners with community advisory groups to incorporate input from understudied communities to guide our research on real-world prenatal, cardiology, and cancer genetic counseling sessions with the ultimate goal to link genetic counseling process and outcomes across a diverse set of counselors and patient populations.

~ Thanks to UTS for hosting Dr Zierhut ~