title: Promoting, building and sustaining a regional laboratory network in a changing environment.
abstract: The Queen's University Department of Pathology and its affiliated hospital laboratories (Kingston, Canada) have operated a successful laboratory outreach program for more than a decade in Southeastern Ontario. The outreach program provides high quality reference testing and technical and professional expertise in laboratory medicine to largely rural and small urban community hospitals. As a consequence of dramatic cuts to the publicly funded health-care system in the Province of Ontario, the environment in which laboratory medicine is practiced has altered irrevocably. This article discusses some of the difficult internal and external challenges faced by the outreach program within the region and how they were effectively managed, not only to maintain but to enhance the program's services. The result has been a continued improvement in the quality of laboratory services in the region with significantly increased cost-effectiveness, largely through reengineering and consolidation.
authors.affiliation: Pathology Services, Regional Laboratory Outreach Program, Kingston General Hospital, Queen's University Faculty of Health Sciences.
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: More
authors.forename: S K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Sengupta
authors.forename: P N
authors.initials: PN
authors.lastname: Manley
mesh_terms: D002017:Budgets; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D006754:Hospital Restructuring; D006755:Hospital Shared Services; D006785:Hospitals, University; D007755:Laboratories, Hospital / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D008389:Marketing of Health Services; D009864:Ontario; D010337:Pathology Department, Hospital / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D012041:Regional Medical Programs