Hospital Lab Receives Top Marks

George C. Grape Community Hospital's Medical Laboratory can take a seat at the head of the class. The laboratory was recently the subject of a routine inspection by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to ensure compliance with CLIA (Clinical Laboratories Improvement Amendments). While a positive outcome was expected, the inspection report found no flaws whatsoever.

"It's highly unusual in the industry for a medical lab to be entirely without flaws on one of these inspections," said George C. Grape Community Hospital's Laboratory Services Director, Prem Barlow. Barlow was quick to credit his laboratory staff for this remarkable achievement." Presently, our laboratory is staffed with five people, four being certified lab techs and one laboratory assistant who is doing a laboratory on-line course to be completed in the fall of 2016. Collectively, our current staff has over 150 years of lab experience."

The news of the perfect CLIA inspection score sets the tone for a very exciting development in the evolution of the hospital's laboratory service: A major expansion and renovation of the current lab. "Our new state-of-the-art laboratory will be relocated next door to its current location," Barlow explains. "The dimensions of the new lab will be close to twice the space that is currently available, which should allow for much needed expansion of the tests menu and will also accommodate new equipment with updated technology in the coming years."