Dynacare has developed a “lab of the future” in Brampton to meet the growing health-care needs of people of Ontario.

The new lab is located on Midair Court in the same place Dynacare opened its original lab, some 30 years ago, says Richard Chee-A-Tow, director of laboratory operations.

Back then, he says there was nothing around, not even a Tim Hortons coffee shop. The new lab is surrounded by factories and trucking companies, adjacent to the Airport Road intermodal station and Highway 407. There’s even a Tim Hortons on the corner.

The “lab of the future” was needed to modernize and automate equipment, in order to increase its efficiency and keep pace with the growing population and the volume of tests, says Chee-A-Tow. “There was an expectation to do more with less.”

Dynacare sought out experts from all over the world, including Germany, Denmark, England and China, to consult on the new facility. “You only get to work on a Ferrari once in a while,” says Chee-A-Tow, adding Roche and Data Innovations were selected as the key vendors.

Construction of the new lab started in October 2017 and took a year to complete.

To make way for the new equipment, Dynacare had to dig a trench that was 4,300 square feet, which was the equivalent of 860 wheelbarrows of dirt. The new facility required 35,000 square feet of cable, or the equivalent of 19 CN towers.

Dynacare serves 10 million patients, and another 15,000 health-care professionals, such as physicians, midwives, dentists, governments, hospitals, long-term care facilities, employers and insurance companies.

The laboratory now processes up to 200,000 tests a day, double the volume of the old facility. Since the laboratory went live in September, Dynacare has processed more than 3.1 million test samples with the majority from Ontario residents.

Dynacare offers more than 2,000 tests and test combinations — ranging from routine screening to highly obscure molecular and genetic analysis.