In September, over 100 hospitals across Canada began actively participating in interactive learning sessions in the Using Labs Wisely program. Using Labs Wisely is a national effort that aims to make a measurable impact on reducing low-value lab testing.

Low-value lab testing occurs when a test is ordered for the wrong reason or at the wrong time. These tests consume finite hospital resources and can quickly snowball into a cascade of unwarranted investigations or treatments, potentially exposing patients to harm.

Hospitals participating in the program identify areas where they’d like to make improvements and share utilization data on a defined set of lab tests. The initial set of hospitals that joined Using Labs Wisely have now received utilization reports to see how their hospital compares to peers in the program.

“The program continues to evolve as hospitals learn, collaborate, and share data amongst each other to identify areas of improvement,” says Gillian Hurwitz, Project Manager of the Using Labs Wisely program. “It’s fantastic to see the energy of national lab experts leading efforts to implement change and tackle this complex problem in Canadian health systems.”

As the program expands, hospitals will contribute to the creation of a national reporting system for appropriate lab utilization in Canada.

View our list of participating hospitals.

For updates on our next round of applications in 2023, join our mailing list.