A new Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) clinical laboratory facility is open for business following a relocation to a 110,000 square-foot facility in MetroCenter. The new lab is located approximately 5 miles from VUMC’s main Nashville campus.
The new laboratory more than doubles the space of VUMC’s prior laboratory and expands the workspace of more than 350 laboratory personnel.
At this facility more than 550 tests can now be performed under one roof. Services are focused on outpatient and specialized testing, including histology, cytology, hematopathology, molecular diagnostics, infectious diseases, and genomic testing, as well as expansion of testing services to external clients.
“The leaders and teams involved with the expansion and relocation of our clinical labs are to be commended for this transformative effort,” said C. Wright Pinson, MBA, MD, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Health System Officer for VUMC. “The new facility will increase operational efficiencies and improve outcomes throughout our health system while allowing for future growth.”
Along with the move to MetroCenter, approximately 13,000 square feet of clinical laboratory space at the Medical Center’s main campus will be renovated and instrumentation upgraded for improved efficiencies. The capability to run more than 130 tests will remain on campus to support inpatient care, surgeries and the adult and pediatric emergency departments.
“This is an exciting day in the history of Vanderbilt University Medical Center,” said Alice Coogan, MD, chair of the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology. “We are so grateful for the investment of the institution and the understanding of just how important the lab is to the VUMC enterprise and to the communities we serve. This is a demonstration of our commitment to making health care personal for every patient, one lab test at a time.”
Treatment decisions are driven by lab results, and accurate and expedited results are crucial to delivering high-quality patient care. The expansion at MetroCenter, as well as the renovation of on-campus laboratories, is expected to bring increased efficiency and accuracy, benefitting patients and clinicians.
“This is the culmination of years of planning, and it has been a wonderful opportunity to build a world-class laboratory from the ground up,” said Adam Seegmiller, MD, PhD, vice chair for Clinical Affairs in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology and executive medical director of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine-Clinical Service Center. “With this project we have been able to overcome our past space constraints and build out the space to function exactly the way we envisioned.”
The new lab at MetroCenter allows both an expansion in the volume of testing and in the types of tests which can now be performed in-house rather than being sent out to external reference or commercial laboratories for completion.
One significant addition to in-house services will be human leukocyte antigen (HLA) testing which determines if a potential donor and a transplant recipient are a match. The Vanderbilt Transplant Center is now the fifth largest transplant center by volume in the nation, and the HLA testing to support these transplants is expected to be brought in-house by the first quarter of 2025.
“Bringing tests back in-house will allow us to better care for our patients because we’re no longer just waiting for results to come back and be reported here,” said Coogan. “Having an in-house HLA lab is a big deal for us and for our patients who need lifesaving transplants.”
New equipment at the lab now automates routine laboratory tasks such as specimen preparation and performance of basic assays, allowing personnel to focus on more complex activities. Automation also increases testing capacity and accuracy.
“The VUMC enterprise includes Vanderbilt Bedford Hospital, Vanderbilt Tullahoma Harton Hospital and Vanderbilt Wilson County Hospital, as well as a joint venture at Tennova Healthcare – Clarksville,” said David Vinson, Senior Vice President of Diagnostic Laboratory Services. “While these facilities all have on-site laboratory services supporting their inpatient and emergency department needs, the MetroCenter expansion gives us the flexibility to provide an expanded menu of local testing services to these hospitals.”
Over the past 30 years, VUMC’s laboratories have, on a limited basis, served other hospitals and laboratory customers throughout the United States, and even in other countries. With the MetroCenter expansion this will increase.
“With the opening of our MetroCenter core laboratory and the insourcing of laboratory tests, we are well-positioned to expand our extramural practice growth and reach our goal of becoming the preferred laboratory provider in the Southeast region,” said Victoria Laughman, Vice President for Business Development for Laboratory Services. “It also allows us to serve our ambulatory practices and regional hospitals better and helps grow their practices, while meeting the needs of local community providers.”
The MetroCenter site also includes a consolidated space for laboratory administration, a dedicated space for physician residents and fellows, and a classroom to train allied health professionals to support the lab’s operation.
“We’re planning to add a training program for histotechnologists, the people who take tissue samples and prepare slides so they can be examined by a pathologist,” said Coogan. “There’s a national shortage of histotechnologists, so we’d like to develop our own pipeline. That’s possible with the large classroom and teaching lab space in our new facility.”
Vanderbilt Medical Laboratories adheres to all state and federal regulations, ensuring the highest quality, safety and compliance standards. It is College of American Pathologists (CAP)-accredited and maintains certification through the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) of 1988, a federal program governed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). CLIA certification was received for the new site earlier this year.