Diagnosing women’s health conditions can be challenging, especially when symptoms overlap. For patients presenting with vaginal symptoms, particularly concerns of a sexually transmitted infection (STI) or other infectious disease, clinical assessment alone may not provide enough clarity to distinguish among conditions, delaying diagnosis and appropriate care. As a medical director and OBGYN, I have seen this challenge firsthand, from patient visit and sample collection through processing, reporting, and follow-up.

To better understand how these challenges can be overcome, I spoke with Barbara Eaton, Vice President, Assay Development at Hologic. She discussed molecular diagnostic solutions, designed not only for clinical performance, but for practical adoption. Molecular workflow design can also help laboratories support more actionable results in women’s health, particularly when patients present with overlapping symptoms.

“The opportunity here is to give real clarity of result and interpretation to help guide the next step in care,” Eaton said. “This is especially timely and relevant in women’s health, an area in which we’ve built a strong foundation, and one that can be applied to other settings as testing menus expand.”

Testing strategies for overlapping symptoms

Conventional diagnostic methods like microscopy task providers with treatment decisions based on tests with low sensitivity and low specificity. This could result in incorrect treatment, persistent symptoms, diminished quality of life, and/or repeated visits and concerns. In women’s health, this is particularly important because symptoms do not always provide a reliable or complete clinical picture. For example, when a patient presents with symptoms that could reflect vaginitis or an STI, their provider needs answers that can support targeted management rather than prolonged uncertainty or empiric treatment. These tests enable accurate identification of pathogens and detection of multiple targets from a single sample, supporting more standardized testing approaches and reducing reliance on symptom-based assessment. That is where molecular diagnostics prove superior: helping ensure the patients get the right test and the right treatment at the right time.

“With molecular diagnostics, you can get the most out of the single sample that is collected and provide broader information on a patient,” Eaton said. “That is where workflow efficiency and clinical value come together. The same principles extend beyond women's health too. Take gastrointestinal panels, for example. Instead of a syndromic panel, we split them into primary bacteria, extended bacteria, viral targets, and parasitic targets,” shared Eaton. “The flexibility of this type of platform and the breadth of targets make the process ideal for so many care settings.”

When multiple answers are clinically relevant, multiplex testing can help identify coexisting conditions from a single sample and support more informed treatment decisions. Targeted, sequential, or reflex approaches may still be appropriate depending on the clinical question and laboratory workflow.

Real-world operational considerations

Laboratories operate in high-volume environments, balancing routine testing, urgent samples, quality requirements and fluctuating demand across daily and multi-shift operations. Automation can help address these challenges by reducing manual steps and improving workflow predictability.

“The goal is to remove hands-on steps that require a technician to spend more time than needed interacting with the system,” said Eaton. “Laboratories need tools that help them manage overall volume, scheduling, and workflow across their instruments, rather than having to do so for each system individually.”

The practical question is not simply whether a platform can perform a test, but whether it can support the timing, staffing model, and sample flow of the laboratory — and flex when needed. Continuous loading, random access, automated processing, inventory visibility and fleet-level management can all influence how quickly laboratories move from specimen receipt to result reporting. These operational considerations are especially important in hospital-affiliated laboratories, regional networks, independent laboratories, and emergency care environments where demand can be difficult to predict.

Testing solutions must function reliably during periods of sustained or unexpected demand, including routine screening, seasonal variation, and public health needs. Molecular platforms can help absorb those shifts while maintaining quality and consistency across routine, urgent, and specialized testing.

Connecting laboratory efficiency to patient care

From my experience, fragmented testing processes can create gaps where patients are lost to follow-up.  Patients may perceive multiple visits, additional samples, or delayed reflex testing as barriers to care. More integrated testing approaches can reduce this friction by supporting earlier clinical decision-making, while standardized testing pathways help reduce variability across care settings. Identifying multiple conditions from a single swab can also minimize repeat visits and simplify the diagnostic experience for patients.

A more efficient laboratory workflow can have direct, positive clinical impact. When results are available sooner and with greater clarity, providers are better positioned to initiate targeted treatment, avoid unnecessary empiric therapy and reduce the likelihood that patients will need additional visits to resolve the same concern. This is especially relevant for symptomatic women’s health conditions, where patients too often find themselves referred elsewhere or needing to return repeatedly for additional evaluation.

Patient-collected specimens, when validated and used in appropriate clinical settings, may also help expand access beyond traditional women’s health environments. In urgent care, emergency care, and primary care settings, this flexibility can support testing when a pelvic exam is not feasible or necessary for the clinical scenario. By broadening where and how samples can be collected, laboratories and providers may be able to reduce delays while maintaining dependable testing pathways.

However, improving access requires more than test availability. It depends on coordinated systems for specimen collection, transport, laboratory capacity, result reporting, and clear follow-up. Laboratories play a central role in supporting this infrastructure by ensuring consistent, dependable testing capacity.

Broader strategic implications for laboratory leaders

As testing becomes more integrated and data-driven, laboratories are increasingly positioned to support broader health system goals, including population health initiatives, quality improvement, and standardized care pathways. Advances in multiplex testing, digital integration, and emerging care models are reshaping expectations for how diagnostic information is generated and used. Organizations that build flexible, scalable operations today will be better prepared for future changes in clinical demand and technology.

“As laboratories expand molecular testing menus, flexibility becomes just as important as performance,” Eaton said. “With Hologic’s Panther System, for example, the ability to support random access and run LDT and IVD assays without changing the mode of the instrument gives laboratories more flexibility in how they manage diverse testing needs.”

In my clinical experience, antimicrobial resistance has made diagnostic stewardship an essential part of infectious disease care. The question is no longer whether a patient has an infection: it is whether the right test is being used for the right patient, whether treatment is truly warranted, and whether the results can support the most appropriate management decision. For symptomatic patients, molecular diagnostics can help move care away from reflexive empiric management and toward more evidence-driven decisions, particularly as resistance-informed testing becomes a larger part of infectious disease management.

Diagnostic innovation delivers the most value when it improves both test performance and the ability of laboratories to deliver results within real-world clinical workflows. Clinical specificity, workflow efficiency, scalable molecular testing and other capabilities that have supported progress in women’s health diagnostics are increasingly relevant across broader areas of infectious disease testing. For hospitals and regional laboratories, this evolution underscores the need for platforms and testing strategies that can support both established women’s health needs and expanding acute care demands.

This is where laboratory workflow and clinical stewardship intersect. If laboratories can support timely, reliable testing across broader menus and flexible sample collection pathways, clinicians are better positioned to act with confidence.

“Antibiotic stewardship is an important part of where molecular diagnostics are headed,” Eaton said. “Solutions that support this space have great potential to give laboratories and clinicians more actionable information while also expanding menu flexibility, sample collection options and reach for patients.”

The future of testing

The future of testing depends on pairing advanced diagnostics with practical, scalable workflows. For laboratories, this means adopting testing strategies that support accuracy, efficiency, ease and reproducibility. For providers, it means access to clearer, more actionable information. For patients, it means fewer barriers between testing, diagnosis, and care.

“The truest benefit of molecular workflows is that burden to all parties is minimized without compromising speed or accuracy,” shared Eaton. “When results are generated quickly and can be actioned flexibly, we’re able to reimagine the diagnostic process.”

Looking ahead, the next phase of molecular diagnostics will likely be defined not only by broader menus, but by more thoughtful use of testing to support targeted therapy, antimicrobial resistance awareness, diagnostic stewardship, and access across a wider range of care settings. As molecular diagnostics continue to evolve, laboratories will be central to ensuring that the right test is used in the right context and that the right answer reaches providers in time to guide appropriate management.