Purpose Driven Work

Purpose-Driven Work

LifeLabs’ people are driven by purpose in
work and in their diverse communities

To be part of a team at LifeLabs is to develop deep connections with the colleagues we work with and with the communities we serve. We embrace the value of caring in every aspect of personal and professional life.

As an organization, LifeLabs supports employees’ efforts to contribute to the communities they live in, the communities they work in, and the larger healthcare community. In addition to our corporate donation program and funds for disaster relief, we match the donations raised by our teams for the causes they cherish through our Employee Giving Program. We also allot time so that employees can contribute volunteer service to their charity of choice. We know that our team’s willingness to give and to go the extra mile is the source of our strength as an organization and has been key in helping us earn the trust of our customers.

Caring for the environment through sustainable practices

LifeLabs takes great pride in our commitment to sustainability. We understand that waste and pollution have a direct impact on the health of our ecosystem and the people who live within it.

In the last decade, LifeLabs has invested in programs and tools that have significantly reduced our environmental footprint. Team members have been the catalyst for many of these programs and all employees have embraced them. In December of 2023, LifeLabs formed the “Sustainability Squad” – a national group that meets once a month to discuss sustainability trends, issues, initiatives and ideas within the organization. The team is comprised of 19 individuals from multidisciplinary departments within LifeLabs including: Employee Health & Safety, Logistics, Government Relations, Quality & Regulatory Affairs, Client Services, LabOps, Operational Excellence and Transformation, Communications, Specimen Management, Facilities and Procurement.

Our partnership with Spud.ca, a sustainable online grocery service, is a great example of an employee-led initiative. Every week our British Columbia laboratories give approximately 300 cold packs, used to transport test specimens, to Spud. Spud sanitizes, inspects and reuses them to package groceries for delivery, resulting in 12 tons (15,000 cold packs) less waste going to the landfill each year. LifeLabs also employs a special system to treat six million litres of water used in labs so that it can be returned safely to municipal systems. By streamlining biohazardous waste pickups, we’ve reduced the amount of driving required to manage this waste by 50,000 kilometres per year, which also reduces emissions. Plus, we expanded our tracking of environmental metrics (electricity, water consumption, energy consumption, waste generation, travel, etc.) and their associated Green House Gas emissions, to cover our national operations. We now monitor this for our 384 Patient Service Centres (PSCs), and 14 of our labs. LifeLabs also recycles batteries, offsets its carbon footprint by planting trees, and throughout the year we replaced select lab lighting with high-efficiency LED panels reducing both electrical costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

Supporting our communities and the causes we care about

LifeLabs is proud to participate in and contribute to the communities we serve, and we encourage employees to play an active role in community events.

Among many such events in 2023, Patient Services Centre employees in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, participated in a fundraising walk and raised $800 for local Alzheimer’s care. Employees from Mississauga, Ontario participated in the Hazel McCallion Walk for Health, raising $3,000 which was matched by sponsor Orlando Corp. for a total donation of $6,000 to Trillium Health Partners.

Many LifeLabs employees also actively work to advance science and medicine through participation in research and education. In 2023, a group of employees eagerly embraced the opportunity to collaborate with other laboratories and Johns Hopkins University to complete an unprecedented study of lipids. Led by Quest Diagnostics, the study involved analyzing more than 460 million lipid test results to examine how various factors, such as where the patient lives, affects cholesterol. This was one of the first studies to be attempted on a global scale, incorporating samples from individuals across 17 countries.

LifeLabs’ professionals in B.C. also collaborated with members of the health sciences faculty at the British Columbia Institute of Technology to pen a chapter of an open education textbook on pathology. The chapter provides an understanding of how medical diagnostics work, specifically regarding how blood samples are collected and processed and how results are interpreted and reported.

Adapting to ensure services are accessible and safe for underserved communities

LifeLabs’ team is resourceful, resilient, and adaptive. They stay focused on the goal, thinking outside the box to overcome obstacles and ensure communities have access to essential services.

When a devastating wildfire closed the single road leading into Port Alberni on Vancouver Island, our LifeLabs teams were determined to continue providing services to the community. The Victoria Reference Laboratory chartered an aircraft to fly and collect customer test specimens, while employees at the Patient Services Centre in Port Alberni personally drove the specimens to meet the aircraft at their end. Our teams were tireless in sustaining this challenging solution for several weeks until the road could safely open.

While the wildfire situation was unexpected, it is the day-to-day norm for LifeLabs teams to find solutions to make services accessible. That might involve mobile services to visit customers’ homes, making PSCs wheelchair-friendly, training staff to have awareness and sensitivity around mental health issues, or designing programs around diverse needs. To ensure Indigenous customers can receive access to testing within a safe and culturally supportive environment, and without having to travel long distances, we send diagnostic testing teams to provide service at approximately 200 Indigenous centres, including the Kal’numet Primary Care Clinic in West Vancouver B.C., run by Squamish First Nations, and Fort Severn First Nations, hundreds of kilometres north of Thunder Bay in Ontario.

We are also proud of the Serving Patients with Autism Program, available in all PSCs in B.C. and Ontario, and at select locations in Regina and Saskatoon. This program is designed to provide a caring and compassionate specimen collection experience for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

What’s more, LifeLabs also collaborated with St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver on a new pilot to make blood transfusions easier for patients with sickle cell disease or thalassemia, two well-known chronic blood diseases. In this pilot, patients had their blood samples collected at a LifeLabs Patient Service Centre so they could be crossmatched with the blood they would receive as part of their treatment. Having this out of the way before the procedure took place meant patients could spend less time at the hospital. LifeLabs staff were more than willing to take on the extra work and training required to support this pilot, which helped to make treatment easier and more accessible.

LifeLabs’ Serving Patients with Autism Program has been so great for myself and my son Vinny who is a non-verbal autistic 8-year-old.

When we show up for our appointment, we walk right in. If we had to wait in the room, that would set Vinny up for failure. All the staff are patient, compassionate and understanding of Vinny’s needs. Before our first appointment, we had a practice visit with the team so Vinny could understand the entire process, which was so helpful. We also have access to tools and toys that help him through the appointment. This is a wonderful program, and I highly recommend it.