Donor Network West and LABS, Inc. Enhance Services to Save More Lives

The partnership will help donor families by reducing their waiting time at hospitals while continuing to provide the highest quality donor testing to transplant partners.

San Ramon, CA (PRWEB) March 22, 2017

Donor Network West, the federally-designated organ, eye and tissue recovery agency for northern California and Nevada and LABS, Inc., announced the future opening of a CLIA certified dedicated laboratory in northern California specializing in rapid turnaround (STAT) infectious disease screening and serology testing used to determine the suitability of potential organ and tissue donors. This partnership will help donor families by reducing their waiting time at hospitals while continuing to provide the highest quality donor testing to our transplant partners.

Donor Network West currently sends blood specimens to the LABS, Inc. facility in Denver, Colorado. The donation process hinges on the critical laboratory results and providing them in a faster manner, allows for more timely matching of donor organs to waiting recipients.

Starting this fall, LABS, Inc. will open their laboratory at Donor Network West's Clinical Center in San Ramon, California, where they will conduct the expedited blood screenings more efficiently than the current process. The reduction in travel time of the blood samples means donor families will spend less time in the ICU waiting. Shortening this wait time could also result in additional organs viable for transplant.

"Honoring and respecting the donors and families that we serve is at the core of our mission. Waiting for test results can be emotionally tolling for families that are making their final arrangements while grieving the loss of a loved one. Our partnership with LABS, Inc. will help relieve some of the recovery timing concerns for these families and allows us to maximize the life-saving gifts that are entrusted to us," says Cindy Siljestrom, Chief Executive Officer of Donor Network West.

LABS, Inc., headquartered in Centennial, Colorado with a satellite laboratory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, provides laboratory services specialized for transplantation and biomedical applications. Donor Network West is headquartered in San Ramon with offices in Fresno, California, and Reno, Nevada. Its Clinical Center, located steps away from the main office, houses three dedicated tissue recovery suites, a kidney perfusion facility and storage for organ and tissue recovery supplies.

"Our partnership with Donor Network West starts with our mission of enabling our customers' safe and timely decisions by delivering the highest quality, most accurate laboratory services. What better way to do that for our valued partner, Donor Network West, than by embedding our laboratory facilities directly into their Clinical Center. In this way we hope to develop an innovative business model for the future that will serve not only our customers, but those patients, families and communities that our customers serve," says Dr. Gregory D. Clark, President and Chief Executive Officer of LABS, Inc.

There are 10,600 people waiting for an organ transplant in northern California and Nevada. One organ donor can save the lives of up to eight people and a tissue donor can heal more than 75 others. Anyone can register as a donor at DonorNetworkWest.org or at the DMV.

About Donor Network West
Donor Network West saves and heals lives by facilitating organ and tissue recovery for transplantation. The organization was established in 1987, and is an official Donate Life organization accredited by the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO) and the American Association of Tissue Banks (AATB). Federally designated to serve 40 counties in northern California and Nevada, Donor Network West partners with the Department of Motor Vehicles and the state-authorized donor registries. For information, visit DonorNetworkWest.org and find us on social media: @mydnwest.

About LABS, Inc.
Founded in 1978, LABS provides laboratory services specialized for transplantation and biomedical applications. Our mission is to enable customers' safe and timely decisions by delivering the highest quality, most accurate laboratory services. We hold an unmatched list of licensures and agency accreditations including College of American Pathologists (CAP), Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA), and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We combine our industry-leading credentials with a customer consultative approach to deliver precisely what's needed, when and how it's needed. As a result, our customers are able to make safe, informed and prompt decisions that impact their business, and the lives of those they serve. At LABS, we look beyond the testing to what is possible as the result of it. Lives are at stake, innovation is impacted and potential is effected. What we do matters, but what our customers do with it matters even more. LABS. Realize the potential. For more information, please visit http://www.labs-inc.org.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/03/prweb14116608.htm