April 19-25 is National Medical Laboratory Week. Our laboratory medicine colleagues are often behind the scenes but they are just as critical to the care and treatment of our inpatients and outpatients as direct care providers.
Laboratory testing informs 70-80 per cent of all treatment decisions. In our world, much of this testing is managed by staff in Lower Mainland Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Services (LM Labs). And they process a lot of tests—more than 63 million in 2013, with the number of tests and complexity of testing on the rise!

Facts about Lower Mainland Labs laboratory services*:

• The bulk of their laboratory work is in the areas of biochemistry and hematopathology.
  • Biochemistry is the chemical identification of a particular enzyme or protein in bodily fluid samples like blood or urine (>27 million tests/year), and
  • Hematopathology is the analysis of the cellular components of blood including red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and blood coagulation (>25 million tests/year).
• Approx. 7.4 million tests were related to Microbiology, the study of microscopic organisms to detect things like bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungus.
• More than 1.4 million tests were conducted for transfusion medicine (the cross matching and transfusion of blood and blood components).
• Half a million genetic tests were processed to test for inherited disorders in children and adults (including prenatal and hereditary cancer screening).
• 537,000+ tests were analyzed to screen for potentially precancerous lesions of the cervix (called Gynecological Cytology)
• And, last but not the least, there were more than 300,000 anatomic pathology case reviews. Anatomic pathology relates to the processing, examination, and diagnosis of tissue specimens by a physician trained in pathological diagnosis. It is commonly used for diagnosing cancer.*Test numbers are for 2013.

Thank a lab professional

There are more than 2,400 laboratory professionals who are committed to providing the highest quality laboratory services across 32 sites throughout the Lower Mainland. Please make sure to recognize them for their hard work and all that they do to support our patients and improving health outcomes!

Learn more about the work of medical lab professionals at http://medlabprofessionals.ca/

About Lab Services

Lower Mainland Pathology and Laboratory Medicine is a service of the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) responsible for providing public laboratory services throughout the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Hospital-based laboratories in Vancouver Coastal Health, Fraser Health, Providence Health Care and PHSA provide both inpatient and outpatient laboratory services. Our specialty laboratories provide a variety of reference and specialized testing for the Province as well.