For a facility so crucial to the health of area patients, the Flin Flon General Hospital’s lab is largely out of sight and out of mind.
But that wasn’t the case Monday as an official with the province’s diagnostic services provider toured the newly revamped facility.
“The flow is in keeping with what a modern lab needs to look like with respect to how work moves through it,” said Paul Penner, chief operating officer of Diagnostic Services of Manitoba.
On Dec. 5, the lab and accompanying waiting room reopened to the public following renovations and upgrades worth $638,000.
That has meant more space and added conveniences for patients, and new equipment and storage space for the lab’s eight employees.
“As far as the staff in the lab, I think everybody’s just so happy
to be in a nice, new clean space [where] everything has its own space,” said Christine Whitbread, charge technologist at the lab.
Penner, who is based in Winnipeg, said that while the lab is hardly front and centre for the public, the “mind-blowing” reality is that 70 to 80 per cent of all medical decisions are based on results from a lab.
“If they don’t have this piece, the system actually falls apart very, very quickly,” he said.
In addition to the physical upgrades, the Flin Flon lab is now linked to a provincial network that can share test results with 16 other major health care sites across Manitoba.
All 79 diagnostic sites across the province are expected to be linked to the information-sharing network within a couple of years, Penner said.
This marked the first major overhaul for the hospital lab since it was built in 1972.
Whitbread estimates about 75 per cent of lab tests ordered by Flin Flon physicians are completed at the hospital. The other 25 per cent have to be sent out.
