HICL is proud to be Canada's largest and longest-standing provider of referred-out medical laboratory testing services with hundreds of long-term client hospitals and organizations nation-wide. For over 4 decades, HICL has provided Canadian Hospitals, Patients and Employers with the most sophisticated medical laboratory testing in the world. Sophisticated and complex testing is our specialty including: chemistry, haematology, pathology, cytology, drug & substance and occupational health testing. HICL also provides testing to support both academic and industry-sponsored clinical research programs. All HICL sample testing locations are within leading academic hospital laboratories and specialty laboratories. Our centres are selected because they employ leading edge technology and the highest calibre of laboratory and clinical expertise needed to process, analyze and report on complex tests. At HICL our mission is to support clinicians and the healthcare system in improving health outcomes.
| Referred Out Testing | Top  |
Referred-Out testing is the term used to describe laboratory tests that Hospitals outsource due to a number of factors including specialization or complexity of assay. Most hospitals will perform routine laboratory testing in-house and virtually all Hospitals have a percentage of tests that they refer-out. While other organizations may dabble in referred-out work, HICL referred-out medical laboratory testing IS our core business, it is not merely an add-on... it is what we do and have done expertly since 1967. HICL is QMPLS OLA Certified and compliant.
| Laboratory Information Systems (LIS) Integration | Top |
HICL is also a Leader in Laboratory Information Systems networking and integration. In this networked, high-speed world exceptional medical laboratory testing is simply not enough. Enabling HICL's Medical Laboratory Referral network, is a sophisticated logistics, transportation, and information technology infrastructure ensuring rapid, and accurate allocation, transportation and processing of tests and rapid delivery of test results all leading to highest levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty. Additionally, the HICL model has inherent agility, flexibility and scalability that further protects and benefits our clients and helps them manage risk. Our well established network of testing centers provides test site redundancy as protection from potential disruption's be they caused by disaster or pandemic scenarios.
| LIS Interface Development | Top |
As a full-service provider, HICL is the most experienced in our field at developing HL7 interfaces between our client Hospital's Laboratory Information Systems and our proprietary referral network. HICL's expertise in interface development spans more than 15 years now. Our expert network developers have developed HL7 interfaces between our proprietary system and all major commercial LIS software packages that have successfully processed millions of transactions. Simply put, if you need an interface to link and securely transfer data between your test provider and your LIS... no one can deliver results like HICL.
| Available Tests | Top |
Hospitals In-Common Laboratory Inc. currently provides over 500 medical laboratory procedures through our referral network. For specific tests search [click here]. Note that if there is a test that you do not find in our database, please contact customer service as it may be a non-standard test that we offer, or we may be in the process of currently adding it to our capabilities.
| Partner Laboratories | Top |
For tests required by Canadian clinicians not presently available in Canadian medical laboratories, we partner with sites such as the world famous Mayo Medical Labs and the University of Florida to ensure Canadian clinicians and patients have access to the most recent tests and best technology available.
| Not For Profit - Our defining Quality | Top |
Like the Hospitals we serve, HICL is a Not-For-Profit Corporation. Why is this important? It's simple, really. HICL's success is measured on achievement of our mission - the enhancement of hospital laboratory services - rather than on the size of profits delivered to shareholders. For-Profit companies have as their primary goal and their legal / fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder profits. This can be achieved by increasing revenues or cutting expenses and service levels. At HICL however, our obligation and mandate is solely to meet and exceed service levels required and expected by our customers and to put our revenues back into our publicly funded healthcare system. The more money we make, the more Canadian Hospitals receive in the form of a revenue stream. Over the past 10 years, HICL has paid more than $ 100 Million to hospitals for work referred to them through our Medical Laboratory Referral Network. In return, clients are offered the highest quality laboratory services at affordable, cost-effective rates.
Importantly, being Not-For-Profit ensures that HICL is both strategically and philosophically aligned with Canadian Hospitals and our Canadian healthcare system, which has enabled us to remain an integral part of that system, and a key strategic partner since our inception.
Best in class testing, while putting money back into our publicly funded healthcare system - doesn't that sound like part of the solution to you?
| History | Top |
Hospitals In-Common Laboratory Inc. was established in Ontario in 1967 as a pilot project designed to determine if it would be more efficient and cost-effective for hospital laboratories to centralize certain medical tests. It was soon recognized that if hospitals could perform tests for each other, then they would maximize efficiency and reduce overall costs. HICL was born, and continues to thrive today as Canada's leading referred-out medical laboratory service. When legislation has allowed, HICL has also performed community testing through its own community-based specimen collection centres which subsequently feed into HICLs Hospital-based Medical Laboratory Referral Network of top academic hospital laboratories where they receive the same top-quality processing and analysis as hospital-drawn samples.
| Community Testing | Top |
While it is very efficient and cost effective to be able to have lab specimens collected at a community lab, processed at a nearby academic hospital by expert lab personnel and analyzed by top quality clinicians through HICL, in some jurisdictions legislation no longer allows processing and analysis of community samples within the hospital system. In this case, private, for-profit companies run community-based specimen collection centres and transport samples generally to an often-distant central lab where they are processed by staff. HICL remains Canada's largest supplier of referred out medical laboratory testing for Hospitals.
| Choose HICL | Top |
If you require best-in-class medical laboratory testing but are also concerned about preserving publicly-funded healthcare and keeping the profit motive out of healthcare decisions, then we have something... "In-Common". Hospitals In-Common Laboratory Inc. is a world class provider of sophisticated medical laboratory testing. With our dedicated team of professionals, finely tuned processes, proprietary systems and technology infrastructure and unparalleled expertise at LIS integration, no one can deliver medical laboratory testing and results like HICL.