Celebrating Lab Week
This week is National Medical Laboratory Week, a week to not only celebrate the hard work of our lab team, but also look at the crucial role that they play within the hospital.
The Lab Team work 24/7 to assist physicians in their diagnostic and investigation process for patients throughout the hospital by providing accurate and timely results vital to medical decisions. At St. Mary’s, the team of just under 50 professionals are mainly responsible for blood collection and analysis, but also work with sterile fluids and urine analysis. As the Cardiac Centre for the region, many of the tests completed are looking for cardiac markers that would indicate any signs of a mild or significant heart problem such as a heart attack.
Within the team at St. Mary’s are Medical Laboratory Assistants (MLA), Medical Laboratory Technologists (MLT), Pathologist Assistants (PA), and Pathologists. Each one of these plays a vital role in ensuring the success of the work completed by the lab, looking for ways to maximize efficiency, while maintaining quality.
The MLAs are pivotal to supporting the pre-analytics of the lab – completing blood draws and other specimen collection and setting up the work for MLTs. Currently, training is being completed for the MLAs to take on a larger role in the lab and assist in operating some of the larger equipment such as maintenance of this equipment and initiating the tests prior to the MLTs beginning their work.
The MLTs are a regulated health profession in Ontario and are therefore regulated to complete specific actions within the lab. This means that they are responsible for completing, reviewing, and releasing all test results.
Our PAs and Pathologists are responsible for diagnostics on tissues, specifically identifying the presence of cancers. Over the last year, St. Mary’s has been able to onboard PAs onsite, which has been important in maximizing the quality assurance for the team. This role has been beneficial for maintaining consistency in the processes for all pathology results.
For the team at St. Mary’s, one of the most important things is the collaboration and integration with the team at Grand River Hospital (GRH). These teams, although separate in people, work hand-in-hand to complete all lab work. Each hospital is responsible for some of their own testing, but there are often circumstances or opportunities where samples are moved from one facility to another. This could be because of facility capabilities and equipment, or simply capacity issues that one lab is facing. Without this integration, the speed at which patients at St. Mary’s receive their test results would not be possible. It is one of the many ways we work together in an innovative, integrated, and collaborative approach to healthcare.
This is especially true in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, where both labs worked tirelessly to process test results in an effort to keep safety at the forefront of healthcare. The GRH lab has been responsible for processing tests from inpatient units across both hospitals, as well as from assessment centres that feed into the healthcare system. Although all tests are moved to GRH for processing, the lab team at St. Mary’s ensures all specimens are appropriately labelled, packaged and prepares them for shipment. The team continues to work to prioritize and process all COVID tests coming into the lab.
“The last two years have been very challenging for the lab team,” says Renee, Integrative Administrative Director, Laboratory. “Despite that, they have continued to demonstrate resiliency and support, for each other and for the organizations. They continue to work to ensure the highest level of patient care and avoid any delay in test results, all while not compromising on the quality of work they are producing. I would personally like to thank each and every single one of the members of the lab team for everything they have done over the last two years, and that they continue to do as we are still navigating this pandemic.”
This week, and every week, we celebrate our lab team and the role they play in providing exceptional patient care. When you see them or speak to them this week, please say a big thank you for everything they do here on a daily basis.
Learn more about the roles within the lab and the work they do with this great 1-pager.