Laboratory Testing

On Line Results

Licensing and Accreditation

We work with provincial, national and international accreditation and licensing bodies to ensure that we are meeting the highest industry standards. All our labs are fully licensed as per provincial requirements and our regional and reference laboratories carry Institute for Quality Management in Healthcare (IQHM) certifications. Select labs, including our new genetics laboratory, hold College of American Pathologist (CAP) Accreditation.

See licenses and accreditation certificates

Quality Assurance

Our Quality Management System ensures we exceed standards and continuously strive to find new ways of ensuring that everything we do benefits our patients, healthcare providers and our healthcare system. It’s this level of commitment that earned LifeLabs the status of being one of the first community labs in Canada to achieve ISO-15189 certification for medical laboratories. We believe that the responsibility for quality rests with everyone at LifeLabs. Ongoing training, documentation, competency assessment, sharing improvement suggestions and auditing what we do and how we do it, is a way of life across the company.

It’s because of this commitment that we offer a series of inter-related quality control and quality assurance initiatives for our pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical services. Using internal and external monitoring systems for Quality Assurance and Quality Control, we ensure:

Accurate and on-time reports, the first time and every time;
Effective and reliable technology;
Continuous improvement through the review monitoring and application of improvement initiatives;
Meaningful and relevant innovations for the benefit of patients, healthcare providers and institutional clients.

Our new automated high-volume chemistry (HVC) lines are the benchmark for speed and consistency. These lines process tests over 80 different assays, such as those that measure blood sugars and kidney function, with the results of these tests providing vital information to patients and healthcare providers about potentially serious health conditions.

With tracks that measure up to 70 feet in length, this is the largest installation and automation in North America. This installation was completed in partnership with Roche and Abbott on an Inpeco line—the first collaboration of its kind globally. This fully-automated HVC line runs millions of tests each year and delivers maximum efficiency and scalability.

This investment in technology complements our core lab services:

Microbiology
Chemistry
Pathology

Hematology
Flow cytometry

This photo can be found in the 2016 Report to the Community

We are pleased to announce that our flow cytometry testing now includes immunophenotyping for hematopoietic and lymphoid malignancies in addition to our existing flow cytometry testing for T-cell subset analysis. With two new Beckman Coulter 10-Color Navios Flow Cytometers and state-of-the-art screening tubes developed at LifeLabs, we can handle large volumes and offer hospitals a comprehensive array of panels covering a wide range of cancer screening tests including:

Diagnosis of acute leukemia, mast cell disorders and myelodysplastic syndrome.
Diagnosis and staging of lymphomas.
Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria (PNH)
Limited T-cell lymphocyte subset analysis (CD3, CD4, CD8)
Extended lymphocyte subset analysis (T-cells, B-cells and NK cells)