Cerner, Ottawa Hospital, EORLA Create Connected Lab Community

In an effort to better connect laboratories in Ontario, Canada, Cerner is working with The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) and two other members of the Eastern Ontario Regional Laboratory Association (EORLA), the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) and the Cornwall Community Hospital (CCH), to implement an enhanced automated lab system that will connect the three laboratories to local hospitals. The initial phase of the project will see all three hospitals implement the Cerner PathNet Laboratory Information System (LIS). The Cerner PathNet solution offers clinicians comprehensive, fully integrated technology to automate the operational and managerial sides of the laboratory and will connect laboratory information with the patient's electronic health record (EHR).

TOH will use the unified Cerner Millennium technology to advance the digitization of individual EHRs and to meet the needs of care providers, laboratory professionals and healthcare consumers. All three hospitals' labs will utilize the PathNet solution, part of the Cerner Millennium portfolio of healthcare solutions, to create an LIS which will increase efficiency and improve access to laboratory information.

Cerner solutions will be used to automate clinical, financial and managerial processes in the laboratory, including those in hematology, coagulation, chemistry, urinalysis, immunology and phlebotomy. In addition to the PathNet General Laboratory, Microbiology and Transfusion Medicine solutions, Cerner's molecular diagnostics solution—PathNet Helix—will also be implemented to incorporate automation of genetic lab testing.