| |
Laboratorians at Owatonna Hospital saluted during Lab Week
OWATONNA, Minn. 04/15/2008--National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week, April 20 to 26, is a time to honor the more than 280,000 medical laboratory professionals across the nation who perform and interpret laboratory tests that save lives and keep people healthy. Medical laboratory technologists and technicians at Owatonna Hospital are among the many unsung heroes of medical health care.
Using technology and instrumentation, laboratory professionals help to prevent disease by detecting unknown health problems and by helping in the diagnosis and treatment of existing conditions by giving accurate, timely test results.
"We're proud of the work we do," said Sandra Otterbein, medical technologist and Owatonna Hospital diagnostics manager. "We have to be painstakingly meticulous in performing our jobs to provide dependable answers to nurses, physicians and surgeons."
Doctors rely heavily on lab tests to make diagnoses, and laboratory professionals are critical components of the health care system. Laboratory test results make up an estimated 70 percent of a patient's medical records and are vital to the diagnosis and treatment of illness and disease. Test results often identify the presence of disease in its earliest stages, when the possibilities of a cure are greatest and when treatment is least costly.
"At Owatonna Hospital," said Otterbein, "our medical technologists and technicians perform tests on blood and body fluids, and perform EKGs for heart attack and congestive heart failure patients. These tests help detect diabetes, congestive heart failure, liver disease, cancers, prenatal conditions and infectious viruses and bacteria."
About medical laboratory professionals
Despite the important roles laboratory professionals play, and increasing demands for laboratory services, the profession is undergoing stress. In its most recent survey of laboratory wages and vacancies, the American Society of Clinical Pathologists reported there are 53,000 new jobs available and 40,000 vacancies. There are several reasons for the lab worker shortage, including rising retirement numbers among laboratory technicians, fewer schools of laboratory technology and the result of fewer graduates.
Medical laboratory professionals represent a variety of specialties, including pathologists, medical technologists, clinical laboratory scientists, medical laboratory technicians, histotechnologists, histologic technicians, cytotechnologists, cytopathologists, phlebotomy technicians, clinical chemists, microbiologists, laboratory managers and medical educators.
These professionals can be found in hospitals, doctors' offices, clinics, research facilities, blood banks, public health centers, the Armed Forces, universities, and industry. Within the laboratory, these highly educated and experienced medical laboratory professionals may work in chemistry, serology, hematology, cytology, microbiology, immunology, coagulation, histology, urinalysis, molecular biology or a blood bank.
About Owatonna Hospital
The new Owatonna Hospital will be connected to the current Owatonna Clinic-Mayo Health System 26th Street location, off Interstate 35, creating a health care campus. The facility will be designed to create an environment for providing high quality, safe, patient-centered care for residents in the region.
Owatonna Hospital and Allina Hospitals & Clinics are taking a leadership role to promote healthy eating and physical activity through their heart healthy living and obesity initiatives with an emphasis on childhood obesity. Over the next five years, Allina and Owatonna Hospital will be working with community organizations to improve nutrition and increase physical activity to decrease obesity and improve heart health.
# # #
Related Links
Allina Medical Laboratories
Health encyclopedia: Lab tests A to Z
|
|
