Happy Laboratory Professionals Week 2022

During the week of April 24-30, 2022, we celebrate our Laboratories! Medical Laboratory Professionals Week occurs each year in the last full week of April since 1975.

Spectrum Health Laboratories is a wonderful collection of over 1,000 employees. Our CAP accredited laboratories consist of Pathologists, PhD Clinical Advisors, Lab Scientists, Techs, and Support Teams (includes Phlebotomy, Central Processing, Assistants, Outreach, Administrative and Management).

We have 13 hospital labs supporting 16 counties in West Michigan plus Spectrum Health Reference Laboratory and Advanced Technology Laboratory.

We performed over 8.9 million tests in 2021 of which 526,000 were COVID specimens.

Spectrum Health Laboratory Accomplishments and Wins with Systemness

Outpatient Lab

Maintained an overall rating (3) of 84.1%, just shy of the 75th percentile and a (4) rating. This means we have a better patient experience than 75% of other labs in the country and are on our way to being above the 90th percentile!

Inpatient Lab

Spectrum Health Butterworth and Spectrum Health Blodgett maintained a Blood Culture contamination rate of 1.59% in 2021 (National Standard is 3%)

Lab Central Processing

Received in approximately 1,143,000 COVID specimens since the beginning of the pandemic (March 2020)

On track to have touched 1,000,000 total specimens so far in 2022 by the end of Lab Week!

Referrals/Sendouts

In 2021, Referrals surpassed 100,000 specimens sent out!

Laboratory Client Services

112 Annual Engagements with clients.

18 new contracts signed, and many more new clients!

Call Center

In 2021, called 100,781 critical results, 19,155 of which were COVID results!

Also handled 61,000+ incoming calls and 148,000 outgoing calls!

Hematology

SHWM Leukocyte Training Module complete, the first module for a new training program created by Kate Rubritius, Manager, and Dr. Frances Rosario Quinones, Pathologist. This module focuses on basic hematology leukocyte workflows. This includes cell identification as well as case studies in order to standardize Hematology training across the system.

Coagulation

Successfully implemented the APTT lot rollover for the lab system.

Blood Bank

Successful Go-Live with the Neo and Lumena instruments.

Introduced Immulink middleware bringing system Blood Banks together.

ImmunoChem

Successfully converted all TB screen collections from 4-tube collections to single-tube collections and slightly reduced the incidence of indeterminate collections.

Chemistry

Implemented the COVID anti-spike antibody. This gave us the ability to differentiate antibodies from a vaccine and an actual COVID infection.

Troponin turn-around time kept consistent with CMS regulations amidst all of the testing volume increase due to COVID.

Microbiology

Implemented a new method of Herpes Simplex viral PCR testing on plasma and CSF. Testing now requires a minimum of 0.05 mL of specimen per run whereas the prior method required 0.2 mL. The frequency of testing will increase from one run per day to three routine runs a day with 24/7 STAT testing available.

Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV) PCR now available opposed to viral cultures. This new method enhances sensitivity and speed! Traditional viral cultures can take 7-21 days for results, whereas the new VZV PCR results in 1 hour.

Advanced Technology Laboratory (ATL)

Launching of Scorpion and Bioview instruments in Cytogenetics.

Partnership with MHDDS and MSU for the SAPPHIRE project.

FDA approvals and clinical trials to support new marketable pharmaceutical drugs for Mutliple Myeloma, ALL, and CML.

Histology

Added the Kubtec specimen imaging system.

Cytology

Interfaced the T5000 specimen processor.

Graduated (and hired) our first student in the UNMC Cytotechnology program.

Regional Hospital Laboratories

Multiple successful regional Go-Lives, including Cepheid, Roche, and Ultrafuges!

Thank you to our wonderful team for all of their hard work in 2021 and so far in 2022!