Festive season opening hours
Our collection centres are closed on all the public holidays, and opening hours during the remainder of the holiday period can be found here. Awanui Labs wishes you all a safe and happy festive season.
Check your measles immunity with a blood test
If you’re unsure whether you’re immune to measles and don’t want to receive another vaccination, a blood test is a reliable way to confirm your immunity status. The measles immunity blood test checks for antibodies to determine if you are protected against the disease. You can order this test online through BODYiQ, Awanui’s self-requested testing service, without needing a GP referral. Results are available within days […]
Important changes to skin swab reporting
Awanui Labs across Te Waipounamu (South Island) are planning a major change in the way community skin swab cultures are reported. You will notice this change from 3 November 2025. Why is this happening? We are making this change to support community antimicrobial stewardship efforts. Skin and soft tissue infections are clinical diagnoses, based upon […]
HbA1c Test Method Change
Awanui Labs have recently harmonised HbA1c testing across our South Island laboratories by transitioning from the BioRad D-100 to the Roche C513 platform. This change aligns with Awanui’s commitment to improving efficiency and maintaining high-quality patient care. As part of this harmonisation, the HBA1C reference interval was just standardised to <41 mmol/mol (compared to the […]
Measles reminder
Awanui Labs is reminding referrers across Aotearoa not to send patients to our collection centres when they are showing symptoms consistent with measles infection (fever, rash, with cough / coryza / conjunctivitis). This is in line with Health New Zealand/Te Whatu Ora public health recommendations or your local HealthPathways. We have taken this step for […]
Use AwanuiConnect for clinical advice!
Our new instant, secure, online clinical portal provides direct access to Awanui Clinical Microbiologists. Click below to download a flyer or here to connect.
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 […]
Removing AST from liver function panels
In many New Zealand Laboratories AST is no longer part of the liver function panel. To harmonise liver function testing (LFT) across all Awanui labs, from 1 November 2024 AST will no longer form part of the standard liver function test panel. However, AST will still be able to be requested separately as either a […]
Changes to testosterone requests
In order to clarify and harmonise ordering of testosterone requests across Awanui Labs, a change to the number of testosterone request options will be effective from 17 September 2024. These changes will have no impact on clinical management of patients but will make testosterone ordering simpler. The current multiple different total testosterone request options will […]
Merging of duplicate requests
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 […]