Campbellford Memorial Hospital says it will be streamlining Outpatient Laboratory Testing as it continues to deal with strain on its hospital resources.
The hospital explained its decision in the following press release:
Ongoing health human resources challenges, combined with increasing costs and supply chain uncertainties continue to put tremendous strain on hospital resources throughout Ontario and across Canada. These challenges are often exacerbated at small rural hospitals where available resources can be thin to begin with. In order to help mitigate these challenges in a way that allows for long term sustainability and the continued operation of the high quality care our community has come to expect, Campbellford Memorial Hospital (CMH) has been reviewing ways to provide care in a more sustainable way.
After analyzing the best practices of similar size hospitals, and upon the completion of a competitive RFP (Request for Proposals) process, CMH has begun the process of streamlining Outpatient Laboratory Testing and has engaged the services of Dynacare to assist in processing routine bloodwork. As a result, many routine test samples will now be transported offsite for processing and turn-around times will now be 24-48 hours to receive results for routine tests. Patients presenting in the Emergency Department and those who have been admitted to the In-patient Unit will still have their testing processed on site. These changes only apply to the processing of routine outpatient testing.
These changes were necessary as CMH is not compensated for routine bloodwork and increasing volumes in our laboratory were putting an unsustainable financial strain on continued operations. These changes will allow CMH to continue to provide the high quality care our patients have come to expect from us, in a financially sustainable way, without any significant change to the manner in which patients receive care. Dynacare is an established healthcare service provider, performing testing of community lab samples from across the province on behalf of physicians and patients. Patients are also reminded that appointments are required prior to coming to the lab, walk-in appointments are not available.
“We understand these are difficult times in our industry and people are concerned about the future of healthcare in Ontario,” commented CMH CEO Eric Hanna, “but rest assured we are doing everything we can to ensure that the services our community has come to expect from us will be available when needed.”
