Mar 9, 2021
How Crisp's Laboratory Helps Diagnose, Treat and Prevent
Hospital News.
Crisp Regional Hospital’s laboratory offers testing that is vital in helping your doctor diagnose, treat, and prevent disease. Crisp does more than 300 laboratory tests in-house and collects even more samples for processing at other labs.
Your doctor may recommend certain lab tests to help diagnose or monitor a health issue, or to decide what the best course of treatment may be. Often, these tests do not even require an appointment. However, depending on the test, you may be instructed to fast leading up to the test.
What can lab tests be used for?
There are a wide range of things that lab services can be helpful for.
- Blood Transfusion: Blood transfusions are used in treatment for certain diseases or in the case of trauma and major blood loss.
- Chemical study: Your body’s chemical and biochemical mechanisms can be studied in blood or urine samples to detect disease or other potential health problems.
- Coagulation testing: This type of testing is used to study the way a patient’s blood clots, or fails to clot the way it should.
- Endocrinology testing: This testing assesses hormone levels, which can be important in helping to diagnose health problems.
- Hematology: This is the most common type of blood test, used to measure everything found in the blood.
- Immunology testing: This test is used to study antibodies and antigens, which indicate whether a person has developed immunity to certain diseases.
- Toxicology: This testing can be used to detect drugs or other toxic things that are not normally found in the body.
- Virology: Virology tests can be used to detect certain viruses. At Crisp, we test for influenza, respiratory syncytial, and Epstein Barr virus testing.
What to Expect
If your doctor has ordered lab tests in order to help diagnose, treat, or prevent a health problem, the type of test you need will vary depending on the reason for the test. You will likely need to give a blood or urine sample. This sample will then be tested at the laboratory. Depending on the type of test, you may need to wait several days for your results, or you may receive your results within a few hours.
Often, your doctor will schedule a time to go over your results with you to explain what the test has indicated. From there, you and your doctor will be able to discuss what best next steps are, whether that is undergoing treatment for a disease, or altering your diet or lifestyle to prevent a health problem.
Lab testing is an easy and accurate way to assess whether there are any problems in the body. It gives doctors insight into what, precisely, may be wrong and allows them to better determine the best way to help you live a healthy life.
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