This service is located on every site within Capital Health and provides support to all divisions of the laboratory. Staff is made up of Medical Laboratory Technologists, Medical Laboratory Assistants and Clerical staff. As the front-line “Ambassadors of the Laboratory” they strive to provide accessible, timely, patient-focused service on a 24 hour / seven days a week basis.

The department provides blood collection services at several non hospital-based collection centres as well as the East Coast Forensic Psychiatric Hospital.

The department reports over nine million results annually from almost five million orderable procedures, at its eight sites. The laboratory staff is comprised of pathologists, laboratory physicians, laboratory scientists, medical laboratory technologists, medical laboratory assistants, a biomedical engineering technologist, phlebotomists, clinical informatics analysts, morgue attendants, administrative support/clerical staff and management staff.

All eight laboratories and all collection areas utilize the Cerner PathNet Millennium Laboratory Information System for all aspects of specimen collection, handling, ordering, reporting and patient management. As well, the Laboratory Information System (LIS) is interfaced to a number of other hospital-based systems.

The department is a major training site for medical laboratory technologists and cytotechnologists in Nova Scotia. As well, the department is affiliated with the Dalhousie University Department of Pathology, contributing to the education of undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students in the Faculties of Medicine and Health Professions.

In addition to their own individual research, departmental staff contribute to the research endeavors of Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine and Capital Health through the development of new diagnostic methods, therapeutic drug monitoring, and studies of the natural history of disease.