Hospital Labs Yielding Results

The pediatric emergency room at Golisano Children’s Hospital - in spite of its kid-friendly atmosphere, the setting can be downright unnerving.

“Scared parents, anxious children. Children who can’t tell us what’s going on, what they’re feeling necessarily, can’t describe some of their symptoms, says Dr. Tia Manning, who works in the pediatric emergency room at Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida..

Dr. Tia Manning augments her physical exam with clinical lab tests. The speed and scope of testing plays an increasingly important role in healthcare.

“In the emergency setting, it’s important for us to have ready access to certain labs. It helps us rule things in, rule things out,” says Dr. Manning.

Nationwide lab tests guide more than 70% of medical decisions. While hospitals make up the smallest share of lab locations, they run more tests than any other provider. The lab within HealthPark Medical Center runs about 2.4 million tests a year. Most results are back within 30 minutes.

“Ultimately the doctor and the nurse see that patient, they can tell what’s going on with them physically but until they get the lab results nothing’s a proven,” says Kathy Boldissar, who is a medical technologist with Lee Memorial Health System.

While a patient would never enter this part of the hospital, chances are a sample of their blood will. From this lab medical technologists analyze blood and fluid for everything from medication levels, heart attack, bacteria, and viruses.

“Most of the time when you tell people what you do, they think it’s just you drew their blood and they don’t realize after that it goes through 20 different steps once they get their blood down to the lab,” says Boldissar.

A common test is the respiratory panel. Providing doctors a lot of information in short order.

“It tests for 17 different respiratory viruses to help determine how they’re going to treat the patient,” says Boldissar.

It makes a big difference in determining whether a child is in serious jeopardy….

“Or if this is something as simple as a cough or cold,” says Dr. Manning.

The bottom line: hospital labs are yielding results.


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Lee Memorial Health System in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of medical care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For nearly a century, we’ve been providing our community with everything from primary care treatment to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries.

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