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News

Standardised MDRO screening for hospital Admission

Awanui Labs Northern Microbiology team wish to standardise requesting and laboratory processing for multi-drug resistant organism (MDRO) screening prior to hospital admission. Please use this request form for any MDRO screening requests to ensure your patients get the right test at the right time.  Please note that Candida auris and carbapenem resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB) screening is only […]

Labour day opening hours

Most of our collection centres are closed on Labour day (Monday 28 October), but details of the centres that are open can be found below or downloaded here. COUNTIES MANUKAU Botany292a Botany Road, Botany8.00am – 12.00pmTakanini30 Walters Rd, Takanini8.00am – 12.00pmAUCKLAND  Mt Eden661 Dominion Rd8.00am – 12.00pmMt Wellington37-41 Carbine Rd8.00am – 12.00pmWAITEMATA  Henderson10 Woodford Avenue8.00am – 12.00pmMairangi Bay119 […]

Patient results delivery improvement

Awanui Labs is improving the delivery of patient results directly to referrers using Medtech Evolution across New Zealand. From 30 September, referrers who are using the Medtech Evolution system, can electronically receive their patient’s test results including blood, urine, histology and cytology results in real time as they are reported by the laboratories. Awanui Labs […]

Streamlining ANA/ENA testing

– No repeat tests within nine months Repeat ANA/ENA requests: we will no longer do an ANA and/or ENA if one has already been done in the previous nine months Background: Antinuclear antibody (ANA) testing is useful in the diagnosis of systemic connective tissue diseases. A negative ANA test or a positive ANA with a […]

School holiday hours

As we approach the upcoming school holiday period, we would like to inform you of some adjustments to our collection services across Auckland from 28 September – 13 October. We anticipate reduced patient demand, and therefore have chosen a small number of collection centres that will not operate during this time. This will affect the […]

Merging duplicate tests

Awanui Labs has recently made an operational change to how we handle duplicate test requests and what this change may mean for you. Awanui Labs experiences a high degree of multiple requests for the same patients, a significant number of these requests are from different doctors within the same clinic. Currently when the patient presents […]

Update: diagnostic stewardship initiative for urinary tract infections

Awanui labs Auckland is improving the quality of patient results by implementing a pre–analytical diagnostic stewardship initiative for community-acquired urinary tract infections.   This involves the requirement for an appropriate symptom-based clinical indication for urine culture requests.  From 26 August 2024, urine culture requests with either no clinical details or inappropriate/irrelevant clinical details on the request […]

New Highbury collection centre

We are pleased to announce the opening of our new collection centre in Highbury on Tuesday 23 July. The Northcote collection centre has relocated to Highbury Shopping Centre, Shop 15, 1 c/o Highbury Pass and Birkenhead Avenue. Operating hours are from Monday to Friday, 07:00-16:00 hrs and Saturdays 8:00 to 12:00 hrs. We have appreciated […]

Changes to requesting of vitamin B12 and folate

You will recall in February we made changes to the requesting of vitamin B12 and folate. See article in The Scope for information. In Summary: We initiated the following changes: We are now implementing phase two of the strategy. We know that some Patient Management Systems (PMS) are still set up to order the combined B12/folate […]

Screening for colonisation with MDRO prior to hospitalisation

The burden of infections with multi-drug resistant organisms (MDRO) continues to increase globally and locally (1,2). A MDRO is defined as an organism that is resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics. Infections with these organisms can be challenging to manage as therapeutic antimicrobial options are limited. Therefore, various preventive measures are undertaken to […]