The Department of Laboratory Medicine at the National Institutes of Health is a large modern laboratory, fully equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation. The laboratory employs 170 people and operates 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.
The Department of Laboratory Medicine includes five services: Chemistry, Hematology, Immunology, Microbiology, and Phlebotomy.
The department provides laboratory testing for all Clinical Center inpatients and clinic outpatients. This translates to more than 1 million test results per year. A hospital-wide information system is used for ordering and reporting laboratory tests. There is also a stand-alone laboratory information system (LIS) that interfaces with the hospital information system. Because many of the instruments in the department are interfaced, test results are available to the nursing units as soon as they are certified. Reports are printed on the nursing units and clinics for tests that are ordered in the hospital information system as STAT or Priority. All other reports are printed as cumulative reports every six months.