Upgrades to the Medical Lab are Completed
19-4-2022
The process to implement new testing instruments, mirrored between the Met and Ouellette hospital laboratories started five years ago with reviews, evaluations, approvals, and renovations.
"Besides planning for a new hospital, it's probably one of the largest projects the hospital Laboratories will undertake," says Jeff Booth, Director, Regional Laboratory Services.
The Roche Cobas Pro Chemistry platform went live at the end of February. It encompasses over a hundred individual tests, including electrolytes, cardiac markers, and liver enzymes. It will conduct over 1 million tests a year.
"We have four total instruments with an automated track line for each set," says Fatima Kasemets, Coordinator for Chemistry and responsible for many aspects of this project. "It's going to improve our capacity, our throughput, and turnaround times".
The instruments have allowed WRH to switch to high sensitivity troponin - a cardiac marker used for heart attacks. "You can rule in or out about 75 percent of patients within two hours," says Kasemets. Prior to the new equipment, similar instruments were used at Met and Ouellette campuses but some specialized tests were only able to be performed at the Ouellette site.
"With identical instruments at each site, we have been able to introduce a couple of tests to the Met site which will improve turnaround times," says Michael Beri, Laboratory Manager, and Laboratory Project Lead. "With the inclusion of ESHC in this transformation and alignment with LHSC, patients' results across Southwestern Ontario will be reproducible and comparable".