News

Restricted hospital access

Nelson Hospital and Wairau Hospital are currently restricting access to the hospital. This means that our hospital based collection centres are not open to community patients, except for exceptional circumstances. Please ensure you book at a community based clinic in the first instance. See our list of collection centres for options.

Can we improve our online booking system?

We are looking at ways we can improve our online blood test booking system and would love your feedback. If you have used this online system, we would really appreciate it if you could spare a minute to complete a very brief survey.  Your feedback will help ensure the booking system is user-friendly and makes […]

Changes to vaginal culture swab processing

We have been reviewing our laboratory processes for vaginal culture swabs. The main purpose of this test is to detect bacterial vaginosis (BV) or candidiasis in women with vaginal discharge or othersymptoms of vaginitis. The Gram stain is the gold standard investigation for both BV and candidiasis.(1-3) BV diagnosis utilises a validated scoring system based […]

Patient Report Upgrades

Medlab South and Asia Pacific Healthcare Group (APHG) are scheduling an upgrade for the reports generated for Histology, Non-gynae Cytology, Bone Marrow, Flow Cytometry and Post-Mortem tests. Read more >>>

Bowel Screening Report Changes

Medlab South and Asia Pacific Healthcare Group (APHG) are scheduling an upgrade for rich text reports on the evening of March 25, 2021. Reformatted Bowel Screening Programme reports are included as part of this change. Read more >>

World Antimicrobial Awareness Week

It’s that exciting time of year again! For World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2020 (WAAW), the World Health Organisation has selected the slogan “Antimicrobials: Handle with care. United to preserve antimicrobials.” You will notice that we now talk in terms of “antimicrobials” rather than “antibiotics” because we recognise that resistance in organisms other than bacteria (such […]

Axe the Fax

Medlab South is making changes in the way we communicate with referrers. This is in response to the June 2019 Ministry of Health and Accident Compensation Commission joint communique defining secure communication within the New Zealand health sector, specifically in regards to email and faxing. Read the Ministry Directive here We have developed solutions to […]

Change to Process for Urine Samples

From Monday 9 November there will be a major change affecting the way urine samples are processed. All urine samples will require mandatory relevant clinical details in order to be processed. Click here to read detailed information on this change.

New Cyclosporine Assay

From 25 August 2020 the laboratory will move to a new cyclosporine assay.  This change is being made, in part, because of reagent supply problems with the current assay. The new assay is produced by Roche Diagnostics which means that cyclosporine will run on the main laboratory analyser.  The Roche assay is accurate (based on […]

eOrder & eResults Available

Laboratory requests and results are now available electronically. eOrder Referrers can order tests from us directly from your practice management system. eOrders are sent direct to the laboratory system, improving accuracy and providing your clinical team with real-time information about your requests.  For more information visit: eorder.co.nz eResults eResults allows referrers to access their results electronically […]