Happy Medical Laboratory Professionals Week! This year, Lab Week is celebrated April 19–25. This year’s Lab Week theme was inspired by the Pixar movie Toy Story — Lab Story: To Infinity and Beyond for our Patients! That theme is perfect for this month’s issue of MLO where we get to announce this year Lab of the Year winner and two runners up, because these laboratories are going to infinity and beyond for their patients!
This year’s Lab of the Year is UHealth Laboratories, University of Miami Health System. UHealth is South Florida’s only university-based medical system. 630 full-time equivalent staff are employed by UHealth Laboratories who provide patients and providers timely access, dependable turnaround times and results, and a courteous, professional experience. Patient feedback indicated that 91% had positive personal interactions with the laboratory and 83% expressed confidence in the laboratory’s ability to meet their needs. Customer service is further strengthened by laboratory teams coordinating between hospital-based labs, ambulatory centers, oncology satellites, and specialized facilities to maintain service stability under changing operational conditions. When workload surges or instrumentation challenges arise, sites support one another through workload redistribution, back-up testing, and coordinated courier movement.
Productivity is also a stellar attribute of UHealth Laboratories. A commitment to eliminating waste, reducing variation, and strengthening the flow of services across the laboratory network guide daily operations and ensure that the laboratory system maintains reliable turnaround times, even as testing volumes continue to grow. All workflows are mapped, documented, and maintained in Policystat and are regularly reviewed to enable teams to identify and correct inefficiencies and align processes with best practices. Performance monitoring is embedded into routine laboratory operations through dashboards, executive reviews, departmental meetings, operational huddles, and one-on-one performance discussions.
The two runners-up for the Lab of the Year award are Atrium Health Cabarrus Laboratory in Concord, North Carolina and Inova Blood Donor Services in Sterling, Virginia. Atrium Health Cabarrus Laboratory has 65 full-time equivalent staff who are committed to improving processes in the laboratory. For example, to enhance patient safety across the health system, the laboratory partnered with the hospital’s nursing department on the impacts of properly labeling tubes, hemolysis, low-volume specimens, contamination, order of draw, and clotted specimens to prevent preanalytical errors. The laboratory also developed a multidisciplinary specimen collection workgroup with nursing to standardize workflows and use shared dashboards to pinpoint defect trends in real time.
Inova Blood Donor Services integrates laboratory excellence and donor services to support trauma and emergency care affecting more than eight million people across Virginia, Maryland, and the greater Mid-Atlantic region. Eight full-time equivalent techs perform all the laboratory testing. Inova performed 739 blood drives in 2025, and their commitment to guaranteeing the blood supply's safety, purity, and potency is demonstrated through meticulous handling of donor collection, laboratory tests, component processing, and distribution.
So many wonderful nominations came in this year, and it is an honor to learn about all the important work that you do. Thank you for all you do, and Happy Laboratory Professionals Week!
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