Nearly every patient that enters our care will be impacted by the services provided by the Hamilton Regional Laboratory Program (HRLMP). The HRLMP provides fast, accurate, and critical information to care providers that will treat and diagnose you or your loved ones.
The HRLMP delivers services across many disciplines.
- Anatomic Pathology
- Clinical Chemistry and Immunology
- Core Laboratory
- Genetics
- Microbiology
- Special Hematology
- Transfusion Medicine
Specimen Collection Centre Locations
At the Specimen Collection Centres, medical laboratory assistants provide blood collection services for our hospital clinic patients only. All specimen collection centres are open Monday to Friday and closed on weekends and holidays.
Specimen Collection Centres are located at:
- Hamilton General Hospital (8:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.)
- Juravinski Hospital (10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.)
- Juravinski Cancer Clinic (8:00 a.m. – 4:15 p.m.)
- McMaster University Medical Centre
- 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. (Monday – Thursday)
- 8:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. (Friday)
- Boris Clinic – 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
- St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, West 5th campus
- St. Joseph’s Healthcare Urgent Care Centre, King Street Campus (8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.)
About the HRLMP
The HRLMP has more than 700 staff members including 50 medical and scientific staff with cross appointments at McMaster University. With laboratories located at each acute care site in Hamilton, we are one of the largest integrated laboratory service programs in Canada.
Mission
To provide leadership in all aspects of Laboratory Medicine, including service, education, and research, with the pursuit of excellence, encouragement of innovation and adherence to exemplary professional standards. The mission of the Hamilton Regional Laboratory Medicine Program shall be supportive of the missions of the participating hospitals and of McMaster University.
Vision
- Clinical and academic leadership in the Central South Region of Ontario
- A single influential, academic organization with an entrepreneurial approach
- High quality patient care through effective and efficient use of laboratory resources
- Maximal provision of specialized and reference clinical laboratory services for the Central South Region
- Responsive to changing clinical, service, academic, technological and fiscal needs
- Commercialized applied research and internationally recognized expertise
- Balance between generalists and specialists
- Serve as a Canada-wide reference center for laboratory testing consultation.
Values
- Respect: We will treat every person with dignity and courtesy.
- Caring: We will act with concern for the well-being of every person.
- Innovation: We will be creative and open to new ideas and opportunities.
- Accountability: We will create value and accept responsibility for our activities.
Laboratory Reference Centre (LRC)
The Laboratory Reference Centre (LRC) provides reference testing services to hospitals external to Hamilton Health Sciences and St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton. LRC Hamilton currently provides services to more than 150 clients, and performs greater than 250,000 tests annually.
For more information about available services and requisitions, please visit the LRC website.
To search for a test currently available through the LRC, please visit the LRC Test Information Guide.
Education
As an academic health centre, education is a major focus. Many of our staff members have faculty appointments at McMaster University and are involved in teaching and training of undergraduate and graduate students, residents and fellows. The HRLMP has affiliation agreements with several Medical Laboratory Science training programs and provides clinical placements for more than 10 MLT students each year.
The HRLMP offers a comprehensive list of continuing education opportunities for MLTs and MLAs including professional development courses, education days/seminars, lunch n learn sessions and webinars.
Register for our continuing education programs.
Residency Education
McMaster University houses the Laboratory Resident Training Program which is accredited by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. McMaster University has fully accredited training programs in General Pathology, Anatomic Pathology, Medical Biochemistry, Medical Microbiology and Clinical Hematology.
The training in Medical Microbiology is integrated with Infectious Disease, a subspecialty of Internal Medicine; while the laboratory aspect of Hematology has become an integral part of the training of Clinical Hematology. Clinical programs are reviewed and assessed to meet the requirements of the Royal College Specialty Accreditation.
Programs are guided by the requirements of the Royal College Specialty Examination but are sufficiently flexible to meet individual career needs. There are ample opportunities for basic research related to various specialties. Fellowship or postgraduate programs leading to Master of Science (MSc) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) are offered to qualified students in specialized areas such as immunology, thromboembolism, transfusion medicine, and health research methodology.
For more information, visit http://www.fhs.mcmaster.ca/pathres/ or http://www.fhs.mcmaster.ca/medicine/hematology/residency/
Quality
The Quality Management System (QMS) of HRLMP and LRC Hamilton is well designed and comprehensive in order to deliver excellence in testing services to ensure the highest quality patient care. A description of the QMS is outlined below:
The HRLMP Quality Management System is designed to:
- Support the HRLMP Mission, Vision and Values
- Ensure that medical laboratory services meet regulatory and accreditation requirements
- Meet the needs of patients and all personnel responsible for patient care
- Support continuous improvement and customer satisfaction;
- Promote error free work
- Support high quality and appropriate laboratory services (e.g. accurate and precise results, appropriate test selection, timely reporting, correct interpretation of results, clinical usefulness, appropriate recommendations for further tests).
Research
HRLMP – Research is known for its custom research support for all sizes of projects, including small scale feasibility studies to worldwide Phase IV clinical trials. We specialize in specimen collection, pathology sample procurement, custom processing and shipping to centralized lab and access to over 1100 clinically validated laboratory tests.
Key Strengths:
- Over 30 year legacy of supporting clinical trials and local clinical research
- Multi-site support (24 hour core laboratories, pathology sites across the city, inter-hospital transportation)
- Actively supporting over 300 trials and research related projects
- Diverse testing portfolio and clinical laboratory expertise- pediatric to long term care
- Ability to procure a wide range of sample types for research- pathology, malignant hematology, virology/microbiology and specimen collection centres for research specific venipuncture
- Research dedicated protocols based on Health Canada and FDA requirements. ISO 15189 Plus Accredited with Diagnostics Accreditation.
- Well supported quality management system
- Over 1600 clinically validated tests, accessible to research, including targeted genetic testing.
- Pathology research services including processing and embedding of tissues.
- Active laboratory support to the Hamilton life science start-up community
- Involved in global clinical trials, with processing and send outs to central laboratory
In preparation for your project please reach out to Betty Hsu, HRLMP Research Coordinator (HRLMPResearch@hhsc.ca) for logistical support. All HIREB signature requests must be made to Dr. Peter Kavsak (kavsakp@mcmaster.ca).
Common reference intervals, laboratory Licenses and Accreditation documents can be found under HRLMP ‘Resources’. Please reach out to Betty Hsu, HRLMP Research Coordinator (HRLMPResearch@hhsc.ca) for more information.
Contact Information
Dr. Tony Chetty
Chief, Laboratory Medicine
Medical Director, Hamilton Regional Laboratory Medicine Program.
chetty@hhsc.ca
Grace Kiers
Program Secretary to Dr. Tony Chetty
kiersg@hhsc.ca
Tracy Carrier
Director, Microbiology, Virology, CCI, Support Services
carriert@hhsc.ca
Debbie Matthews
Administrative Coordinator to Tracy Carrier, Teresa DiFrancesco
matthewsd@hhsc.ca
Teresa DiFrancesco
Director, Genetics, Hematology and Quality
difrance@hhsc.ca
Duane Boychuk
Director, Pathology
boychuk@hhsc.ca
Jeff Cuneo
Supervisor, Laboratory Reference Centre
cuneoj@hhsc.ca
Ron Quequezana
HRLMP Business Manager
quequezana@hhsc.ca
Betty Hsu
HRLMP Research Coordinator
HRLMPResearch@hhsc.ca