Brockville General Hospital is integrating laboratory services with Southeastern Ontario Academic Medical Association and Kingston’s Health Sciences Centre’s lab.
It was announced this week that starting July 6th management of laboratory services remaining at Brockville General Hospital (BGH), including oversight of BGH lab staff, will be handled by Kingston’s Health Sciences Centre (KHSC). All laboratory medical services will now be provided by staff from KHSC and Southeastern Ontario Academic Medical Association (SEAMO). Patients at BGH should see little change to their care at the hospital. Samples will be collected like they always have, before being transported to Kingston for analysis.
Representatives from BGH say critical and timely testing will still be done at their core lab but through integration with KHSC and SEAMO they have access to state of the art technology and a specialised medical team. They expect the move to improve patient access to high quality technical and clinical resources that KHSC already have in their laboratory. BGH also suggests the change will support timely patient care by reducing the wait times for BGH’s critical pathology tests.
Similar approaches to this one have been adopted in other parts of Ontario to address the many difficulties associated with laboratory services, including expertise, costs and complexity. BGH says this initiative will also save all groups involved money by reducing annual operating costs. They anticipate an annual savings of $490,000.
