LIFELABS
FOUNDATIONS FOR OUR FUTURE
2016
4
PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE
Building a healthier Canada means looking at the future and both influencing and
being ready for it. We strive to deliver innovations to our customers, before they know
they need them, exceeding their expectations through sophisticated approaches to
testing, service delivery and partnerships.
Physicians working with patients
confronted with addiction or chronic
pain need accurate data and information
to ensure they are developing the
right treatment plans for their patient’s
recovery. It starts with knowing what
drugs are in the patient’s system. This
often requires that multiple lab tests be
ordered for the patient — perhaps even
a separate test for each drug. With many
drugs now being mixed with others,
and with the rapid and deadly evolution
of both prescription and street drugs,
it can be challenging for physicians to
know which tests to order. In addition,
with results for comprehensive testing
sometimes taking over a week to report,
treatment decisions can be delayed
jeopardizing a patient’s health outcomes.
Under the leadership of our Clinical
Biochemists, Dr. Danijela Konforte and
Dr. Jan Palaty, our team has developed
a transformational approach to testing
for drugs in a patient’s system: the
Comprehensive Drug Analysis (CDA).
This new, proprietary, and simplified
approach detects up to 200 drug targets
in a patient’s system with a single test
and provides results quickly, giving
physicians the information they need
to accurately and effectively treat their
patients.
The concept of a CDA is not new, but
the approach we’ve used at LifeLabs
is innovative. Through our research
we’ve built on the existing foundations
for drug testing and have developed a
testing technology that can deliver results
to physicians in less than three days,
allowing them to take action and support
the patient sooner. We are working
with the British Columbia Lab Services
Agency to bring this technology to B.C.
and will soon also explore its introduction
to Ontario.
In addition to dramatically enhancing
patient care, the CDA will improve
the surveillance of illicit drugs in our
communities. This real-time information
on the presence of drugs in our
communities will help public health
officials and others identify trends in
emerging drug use and support our
health system partners to take proactive
action in this rapidly evolving and
potentially deadly environment.
Innovations in Drug Screening
“We knew we
needed to make
it easier for the
patient to have the
sample collected,
and for the
physician to act on
the result.”
Dr. Danijela Konforte,
Clinical Chemist at LifeLabs
