For many healthcare providers, laboratory testing is still more fragmented than it should be.
A test may be ordered in one system. A patient appointment arranged somewhere else. Courier collections are managed separately. Samples enter the laboratory through another process. Results are then returned through yet another platform, PDF or email.
Every hand-off creates friction. At Viva Health Laboratories, we believe the technology surrounding pathology should be as efficient as the laboratory itself.
That is why we created Lab Direct. VHL’s technology platform, designed to connect the entire testing journey — test ordering, patient administration, phlebotomy, logistics, laboratory processing and results publishing — through one seamless ecosystem.
From test order to result
The principle behind Lab Direct is simple: once a test is ordered, the processes that follow should connect automatically wherever possible. Through Lab Direct, customers and partners can access VHL’s extensive pathology and specialist testing portfolio, select individual tests or customised profiles, manage requests and follow the progress of testing through the laboratory pathway.
But the platform goes much further than simply placing an order. Depending on the service model, Lab Direct can help coordinate:
Test ordering → Patient booking → Phlebotomy → Sample logistics → Laboratory processing → LIMS interaction → Result validation → Results publishing
The objective is to remove unnecessary administration between each stage.
Connecting phlebotomy and logistics
A laboratory service does not begin when the sample reaches the analyser. It begins when the patient needs to have the sample collected. That is why phlebotomy and logistics are an important part of the Lab Direct proposition.
The platform can support the interaction between test requests, phlebotomy appointments and sample transportation, helping create a much more joined-up experience for both the healthcare provider and the patient. This becomes particularly important for digital healthcare businesses and organisations operating across multiple locations.
A provider may have patients throughout the UK but no physical clinical infrastructure in every location. The combination of Lab Direct, phlebotomy access, VHL’s own logistics capability and postal sample pathways enables laboratory services to extend far beyond the walls of an individual clinic.
The laboratory connected to the platform
Behind Lab Direct sits VHL’s laboratory information infrastructure. As samples enter the laboratory, the technology connects the original request with the laboratory workflow, reducing the need for information to be repeatedly entered or transferred manually. Integration with our LIMS creates a continuous digital thread between the original test order and the laboratory result.
This is critical. The more often information is re-keyed or transferred between systems, the greater the opportunity for delay, duplication or error. Technology should remove those interfaces rather than create more of them.
Results when and where they are needed
For many clinicians, the most visible part of laboratory technology is the final result. Lab Direct enables results to be published digitally as soon as the appropriate laboratory processes and clinical validation have been completed.
Customers can access results through the VHL environment, while organisations requiring deeper integration can explore interfaces that allow laboratory information to flow into their own clinical or technology platforms. For larger healthcare and digital-health partners, this interoperability is increasingly important.
The laboratory should not sit outside the healthcare technology ecosystem, it should become part of it.
Built for integration
Healthcare is becoming increasingly connected. Private GP providers, hospital groups, digital-health businesses, pharmacies, wellness platforms, wearable companies and corporate health providers are all developing their own patient experiences. Few want to ask their patients or clinicians to move continually between disconnected systems.
Lab Direct therefore represents more than a customer portal. It provides the foundations for VHL laboratory services to become an integrated component within another organisation’s healthcare proposition.
Through appropriate APIs, HL7 connectivity and system integration, the aim is simple: the laboratory can sit behind the customer’s experience rather than interrupting it.
For the customer, that can mean maintaining their own brand, clinical pathway and patient relationship while VHL provides the laboratory infrastructure behind the scenes.
Technology without losing the human service
Automation is valuable, but laboratory medicine is not simply a technology transaction. There will always be unusual samples, complex clinical questions, urgent requests and patients who do not fit neatly into a predetermined workflow.
That is why Lab Direct operates alongside one of VHL’s most important service principles: access to real people!
Our technology is designed to remove unnecessary administration, not remove human support. Customers continue to have access to named support teams and laboratory expertise when they need it.
The technology deals with the routine. Our people deal with the exceptional.
A platform designed to scale
The healthcare organisations we work with vary enormously. Some may send a handful of samples each week. Others may want to integrate laboratory testing into a national digital-health proposition capable of generating thousands of requests.
The same underlying technology needs to support both. Lab Direct has therefore been developed around flexibility.
Customers can use the platform directly, create their own test profiles, integrate elements of the VHL service into their existing technology or work with us to build more sophisticated testing pathways.
This allows the relationship to evolve as volumes grow.
Removing friction from pathology
Laboratories have traditionally focused on what happens after a sample arrives.
We believe the bigger opportunity is to improve everything that happens before, during and after the laboratory process.
Ordering. Patient access. Phlebotomy. Logistics. Laboratory workflow. Results. Integration.
When those elements operate independently, pathology can feel complicated. When they work together, laboratory testing becomes dramatically easier to deliver and easier to scale.
That is the purpose of Lab Direct. It’s not simply a portal for ordering blood tests.
But a connected technology platform designed to make laboratory medicine work seamlessly around the healthcare organisations — and ultimately the patients — that depend upon it.
If you would like to know more about our platform technologies contact us at sales@vivahealthlaboratories.com.
Viva Health Laboratories
Laboratory precision. Connected healthcare.