UHN's 'can-do' attitude helping bridge the gap in northern Ontario pathology services.

​Joyce Shayer (pictured) in a lab in Lake of the Woods District Hospital in Kenora, Ont. uses Televu Smart Glasses to collaborate seamlessly with a pathology assistant at Toronto General Hospital, enhancing specimen grossing with hands-free technology. (Photo: Lake of the Woods District Hospital) 

The Kenora Rainy River Regional Laboratory Program (KRRRLP) is now part of UHN's LMP extended family.  KRRRLP supports six hospitals in the rural remote Northwestern Ontario.  The hospitals are located in Kenora, Dryden, Atikokan, Fort Francis, Sioux Lookout, and Rainy River.  This hospital network performs routine laboratory testing and monitoring, however are missing key resources in the medical scientific, and anatomic pathology areas that currently cannot be recruited for.

KRRRLP and UHN LMP are working together to revitalize their laboratory medicine program, and are ensuring complete service continuity through ongoing resourcing challenges.  As a result of our new partnership to develop a proof of concept operating model, this northern catchment area will have access to UHN’s gold standard lab services with UHN LMP as a leading program in Canada.  

In working together over the next two years, LMP is working towards identifying improvements that will generate better care closer to home.  This may be in the area of digitized pathology, AI, point of care, transfusion safety and so much more.  Additionally, this will serve the Indigenous populations better than ever and honour the commitment UHN leadership made to improve the health status of that large community and their unique needs, as well as trying to address the general unmet needs that accompany providing healthcare in rural and remote areas.