Peterborough’s Drive-Through COVID-19 Testing Centre First In Province To Use Handheld Devices For Lab Automation
/Peterborough’s drive-through COVID-19 testing centre is the first in the province to implement new handheld devices to digitize COVID-19 lab requisitions—an important step forward in improving the quality and performance of end-to-end testing for patients, care providers and labs.
Working with Ontario Health, Peterborough County/City Paramedics, Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC), Peterborough Public Health (PPH) and the City of Peterborough have partnered to introduce handheld technology and barcoded labels for all COVID-19 tests done at the centre. Staff can now collect a patient’s information by scanning their health card and driver’s license, capturing everything required for a digital lab requisition.
Photo courtesy PRHC
The drive-through testing centre implemented the handheld devices on Wednesday, September 2nd, and in the first five days of use, 1523 people were scanned.
The benefits of the handheld devices include:
More complete and higher-quality data when capturing patient information
Faster processing and easier matching of the requisition to the test
More legible requisitions, making it easier for laboratory staff to process each test
