New partner offers testing at Groves

Groves Hospi­tal and LifeLabs Medical Lab­oratory Services announced on Monday that LifeLabs will begin delivering services to patients in the communities of Fergus, Elora, Arthur, and sur­rounding area, starting later this month.
The move is to ensure con­tinuity in lab services to a grow­ing population. Patients will have the same access to the same services at the same location. Starting March 31, formerly MDS Laboratories, will operate a full service location where local pati­­ents can go to have spe­ci­mens collected for numerous  lab­oratory tests ordered by area physicians.
The facility is  on the site of the existing collec­tion centre  scheduled for clos­ure on March 28. It is located in Groves Hospital’s parking lot.
The new centre will be open 7am to 5pm Monday to Friday, the same hours of operation as its predecessor.
Groves Chief Executive Of­fi­cer Joel Quenneville said in an interview on Monday that the hospital will take on some ad­vantages with the new ar­range­ment.
He noted that with Hospitals in Common, the old collection agency, hospital pati­ents had to leave the hospital and cross the parking lot to be tested, but now they will have that work done in the basement of Groves.
Meanwhile, the service, down to the hours of operation, will remain the same for people visiting for such things as blood tests.
In addition to community pati­ent specimen collection, Life­Labs will offer the fol­low­ing services to physicians and long-term care facilities associ­ated with Groves Memorial Community Hospital:
– delivery of supplies for speci­men collection;
– a range of community lab­oratory testing;
- electrocardiograms (ECGs); and
– delivery of test results.
“Until now, laboratory test­ing services were delivered to our local residents through a pilot project administered by the hospital and the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care,” said Quenneville. “We are pleas­ed that with the help of Life­Labs these vital services continue to be offered to our community. It’s not a big change in service,” Quenneville said. “Tests are basically the same, but there will be more efficient sending result,” of test infor­mation to family doctors.

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