- [Dr Mindy Nye] I believe the statistic is 70% of healthcare decisions are made based on laboratory data.
So we know the results we provide are very influential.
- [Narrator] And that lab data comes from this.
Ooh, pause that.
The lab data comes from this.
[gentle music] The blood test ordered by your doctor.
This is the story of what happens to that small vial of blood.
It's just about four teaspoons, not much, considering the average adult has roughly eight to 12 pints of blood flowing through their veins.
So what about that blood test?
[machine humming] This is Labcorp's Greensboro Clinical Laboratory, [scanner beeps] where those blood tests are analyzed.
- Sometimes we're looking for the presence of something, such as how much cholesterol is in a sample.
Other times we might be looking for the absence of something, such as a tumor marker, if somebody has cancer or not, where we're looking, really looking for the negative of that.
- [Narrator] 10 million lab tests per month are performed here.
Those blood samples being tested come from healthcare providers in four states.
LabCorp operates more than 20 facilities like this around the country.
- [Dr. Mindy Nye] We know these are individual lives that we're touching.
Labcorp was started here in Burlington, North Carolina in 1969, and we've been able to impact more and more lives through diversifying our test menu by cutting edge, leading edge science, and all of the parts of the supply chain that make our ability to interface with that patient and with that physician or healthcare provider that is in pursuit of the answer to that question.
- [Narrator] The lab offers more than 2000 tests to answer those healthcare questions.
Most routine blood screenings require 20 to 30 tests.
Blood samples collected during the day arrive at the lab in the evening.
They are analyzed overnight.
Most results are sent out by morning.
- [Kale Crisp] We wanna make sure that the physician has those results in their hands as soon as possible and timely every morning so they can make the diagnostic decisions that they need to make for patient care.
- [Narrator] But that's gotta be, I mean, that's a balancing act.
You wanna be fast, but you, I gotta get it right.
- Yeah, absolutely.
You never, ever forget about quality.
Just there's quality reviews, there's quality metrics, there's quality measurements.
[machine rumbling] - [Narrator] It's a highly automated, tightly coordinated, barcode-driven dance of technology and medical science.
The barcode tells the system which tests are ordered.
The blood samples in each vial are divided into smaller amounts and sent to specific tests.
- Dr. Mindy Nye] There are some common tests for, you know, sort of routine visits that we are expert on, you know, getting high volumes of tests performed at a high quality in a short amount of time.
There are other tests that we perform here that are relatively low volume because maybe it's a rare disease, a unique condition.
- [Narrator] The high-tech scanners and diagnostic tools search in what you could call an individual's healthy range.
If the results are good, all is fine.
Unusual results are flagged.
- [Dr. Nagendra] When there are abnormalities that we can detect, then it will go in for other reviews by our trained medical technologists and pathologists.
- And this is a laser here, you said?
A laser shooting at the blood sample.
And this is what it's flagging?
- Right.
So the laser is actually looking at the cell size and the complexity of the cell and everything, and based upon that, then it's partitioning the cells into different areas.
And based upon that, then we can tell that this is an abnormal group of cells, and it will flag the, our specialist to look at.
- So the computer is saying, this isn't normal.
Take a look at this.
- Absolutely, yes.
And so it's able to do that.
So when we have that, then we will look at the slide and then alert the physician on any abnormality.
[machine humming] [gentle music] - [Narrator] The maze of technology allows for test results that are faster, more complete, and more comprehensive, and that can diagnose and prevent serious illness, and even save lives.
- The idea is every tube belongs to someone.
So when we speak to our staff and we speak to our teams, it's a mom, it's a dad, it's a sister, it's a brother.
It could be your mom or dad.
So let's treat it like we want the best possible outcome for them.
[gentle music]