LABORATORY – ABOUT US

MemorialUniversityMedicalCenter Laboratory - About Us

The MemorialUniversity Medical Center Laboratory offers comprehensive clinical and anatomic pathology testing services for inpatients, outpatients, and outreach clients. The main Laboratory is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We also operate thePediatric Outpatient Lab and two Outreach drawing stations.
Services

  • Anatomic Pathology - Both routine and frozen histological procedures, gyn and non-gyn cytology, and fine needle aspirations are performed. We also offer special antibody studies in house to assist in cancer diagnosis. Our pathologists routinely consult with other groups on cases of interest and receive many requests for consultative advice.
  • Blood Bank/Transfusion Services - We perform blood type and antibody screens, crossmatches, and Rhogam workups. Our Transfusion Service is supplied by TheBlood Alliance out ofJacksonville,FL. The Blood Alliance partners with MemorialUniversityMedicalCenter to build a local donor basein the Savannah area to help meet Memorial’s blood needs. The Blood Alliance maintains donor collection operationsinSavannahand operates a BloodDonorCenter within MemorialUniversityMedicalCenter.
  • Chemistry- Both routine analysis and special testing are performed including hormone assays, therapeutic drug monitoring, cancer screening assays and cardiac markers. World-class testsinclude cardiac BNP and intraoperative intact PTH. Special chemistry testing includeshepatitis markers, protein electrophoresis studies, and fetal lung maturity assays. Testing not performed at our laboratory is referred to ARUP, our primary reference lab.
  • Hematology- Routine and special studies are performed including CBC, PT/INR, APTT, fibrinogen, platelet function screen, D-dimer, PE/DVT screen, circulating anticoagulant, Plavix by VerifyNow, Factor VIII & IX Assays, Heparin by anti-Xa, Protein C & ProteinS, and bone marrow assistance. More special coagulation studies are a planned future enhancement.
  • Microbiology-Our full service Microbiology department provides all microbiology services resulting in both automated and manual cultures, sensitivities on all specimen types, automated and manual acid fast bacilli testing and fungal and parasitology testing. We also offerGC and chlamydia testing by DNA probes.Additionally, we offer several rapid diagnostic tests such as clostridium difficile A/B, legionella, RSV, influenza and pneumococcal antigen testing. Microbiology also offers MRSA, GBS, and Enterovirus testing by PCR. Future improvements will increase our rapid antigen and/or molecular testing in order to provide optimal customer service.Our Microbiology department has been given the recognition of “Advance Sentinel Laboratory” in the Laboratory Response Network by the Georgia Public Health Laboratory.

Staffing and Accreditation
Our Lab meets all Federal and State regulatory requirements. Our Lab is staffed by board certified pathologists specializing in the practice of anatomical pathology and clinical laboratory medicine. Technical staff includes an experienced laboratory director, experienced laboratory managers/specialists, nationally certified medical technologists, medical laboratory technicians, cytologists and histotechnologists. These positions are supported by lab assistants and clerical support personnel.
The Lab participates in the College of American Pathologists proficiency testing program and is accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP 1461701), the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Health Organizations, certified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA 11D0264614), and licensed by the Georgia Department of Human Resources clinical lab license (GDHR 025-008). All test results aremonitored for reliability, precision, and accuracy by both internal and external quality control programs.

Outreach Services for Physician Offices

Weprovide outreach services to physician offices with courier pick-up Mon-Fri andsame day(STAT and routine) turnaround onmost in-house testing. Results are sentby hard copy, fax or are available on-linethru the Memorial network. We have two locations foroutpatientspecimen collections and outreach specimen receiving. Our main location ison the first floor of theCenter for Advanced Medicine. This location isopen 7 am - 6 pm Mon-Fri and 8 am-12 noon Sat. Our other location is on the first floor of the Provident Medical Office Building (PMOB). This location is open 8 am - 5 pm Mon-Fri and is primarily for patients seen in the PMOB and outreach specimens from Memorial Health University Physicians.