NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Children's National Health System has begun a pediatric genomic initiative to move genetic testing in house, bringing on board next-generation sequencing capability to run its tests, which it will link with patients' electronic medical records.

Sean Hofherr, CNHS's director of molecular diagnostics, told GenomeWeb that the goal of the initiative is to improve diagnostic rates, speed up turnaround time, and be more cost efficient than the hospital's previous model of outsourcing genetic testing to reference laboratories.