Blood glucose screenings. Cholesterol panels. Routine urinalyses. Laboratory tests, such as these, play a critical role in health assessment, health care, and ultimately, the community’s health and wellness.
The truth is, laboratory testing affects people in every life stage, and almost everyone will experience having one or more laboratory tests conducted during their lifetime. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates upward of 7 billion to 10 billion lab tests are performed each year in the United States. These test results influence approximately 70 percent of medical decisions.
In Erie County, the majority of that laboratory testing is performed by the regional reference laboratory Associated Clinical Laboratories (ACL). Tests performed at ACL help physicians diagnose, monitor and treat disease. They can determine the cause of an infection and use sophisticated equipment to analyze blood’s chemical components. The nationally CLIA-accredited (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments) lab also is responsible for supplying regional health-care providers and hospitals with a wealth of critical clinical and diagnostic information.
“Our mission statement is to provide the highest quality and most efficient medical laboratory services to the medical providers and patients in the communities we serve,” states Jymme McQuillan, who has served as ACL’s managing director for the past two years and has 13 years of service with parent company Quest Diagnostics. “We know it’s our job to provide the physicians with accurate and timely results to enable them to diagnose and treat their patients. Early detection and preventative wellness is the key to improving the health of every patient we impact. We take our part in that very seriously.”
Read more in the August 2015 edition of the Business Magazine.
