There are significant challenges associated with qualitative and quantitative nucleic acid tests performed in diagnostic laboratories. The development of internationally available certified reference materials which can be traced to reference measurements will contribute to a better understanding of the performance characteristics of nucleic acid tests and enhance reliability and comparability of clinical data.

Next generation sequencing may have a future role in the identification and resistance detection of clinical pathogens, however, the current complexity of bioinformatics to support this technology makes its routine use in a diagnostic laboratory problematic. However, next generation sequencing is starting to impact epidemiological studies used to investigate the pathways of disease transmission in outbreaks and to determine microbial populations in metagenomics studies.