Laboratory Medicine

The Department of Laboratory Medicine is a comprehensive, modern clinical laboratory diagnostics department integrating laboratory testing, teaching, research, preventive health care, and professional technical guidance. It currently ranks among the top three such departments in the province and is the largest in Qingdao. It is an authorized site for awarding doctoral degrees in Clinical Laboratory Diagnostics and a postdoctoral research station; a key clinical specialty and a key medical and health laboratory of Shandong Province; and the affiliated department of the Laboratory Testing Professional Committee of the Qingdao Society for Analysis and Testing. It is also among the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University's top ten departments with the greatest growth potential and among its top ten departments for the ‘Science and Education Innovation Award’.

The department contains more than ten specialized laboratories, including clinical biochemistry, clinical immunology, clinical microbiology, clinical basic testing, emergency laboratory testing, intestinal outpatient-clinic testing, a hematologic-disease laboratory, an HIV screening laboratory, a PCR laboratory, a molecular biology laboratory, a cytogenetics laboratory, and chromatography/mass spectrometry. Overall, it has nationally first-rate equipment and physical infrastructure and performs more than 500 laboratory test items. Year after year, all of its results meet the requirements of the interlaboratory quality assessments organized by the Ministry of Health and Shandong Province. Some test items also participate in international interlaboratory quality assessment, with all results passing, and the department has repeatedly been named an excellent department in Shandong Province's interlaboratory quality assessment. With the goal of becoming an internationally standardized laboratory and a socially open laboratory, the department has developed distinctive disciplinary features and provides strong support for clinical laboratory diagnosis and scientific research.

‘Putting the patient at the center, quality at the core, and serving clinical care wholeheartedly’ is the department's service tenet. The department has always been committed to building a diagnostic platform with high scientific and technological content and reliable quality. It has 115 professional and technical staff, including 2 doctoral supervisors, 9 master's supervisors, and 16 PhDs. In addition to basic instruments, the department is equipped with more than 100 internationally advanced instruments and items of equipment, including fully automated blood-cell and urine-analysis lines, a fully automated biochemical-analysis line, various electrochemiluminescence analyzers, multiple flow cytometers, microbial mass-spectrometry and tandem-mass-spectrometry analysis systems, a multiplex genetic-analysis system, high-performance capillary-electrophoresis instruments, a molecular gel-imaging system, quantitative allergen-detection systems, and more. Their performance is stable and excellent, and the results are accurate and reliable.

The department applies unified and homogenized management to all subordinate areas, establishes specialty groups spanning locations, uniformly and systematically implements quality-control standards and assessment targets, and applies unified rules for rewards and penalties and for performance assessment. Each year, it carries out several dozen new technologies and projects, recruits high-level personnel, conducts individualized and precision medical testing, and continuously expands the field of laboratory testing.

The department undertakes the teaching of laboratory-medicine theory for multiple specialties of Qingdao University's medical faculty, including teaching experimental diagnostics in English to international students from Southeast Asia. It has also hosted national and Shandong Province continuing medical-education programs for fourteen consecutive years. In 2015, it hosted the China–US Summit Forum on Laboratory Medicine. These activities have played an important leading role in improving the overall level of medical laboratory science in Qingdao and throughout Shandong.

2. Talent Structure

The department currently has 115 professional and technical staff, including 19 with senior professional titles, 33 with intermediate professional titles, and 62 with junior professional titles. It has 2 doctoral supervisors, 9 master's supervisors, and 16 PhDs. Department personnel have held 15 person-appointments as professional committee members of national-level societies; 4 person-appointments as vice chairs and 25 as members or standing committee members of provincial societies; and 2 person-appointments as chairs, 9 as vice chairs, and 7 as members of municipal societies.

The academic talent pipeline is appropriately structured, with 5 heads of subspecialty professional groups and 6 leaders of research groups.

3. Professional Characteristics

As a provincial key clinical specialty, the Department of Laboratory Medicine took the lead in establishing Qingdao's first hemophilia diagnostic laboratory. It has Shandong Province's most complete and systematic tumor-marker testing portfolio and Qingdao's most complete autoantibody-profile testing. It also performs leukemia immunophenotyping, lymphocyte-subset analysis, capillary electrophoresis, genetic testing for more than 60 pathogenic microorganisms, microbial mass-spectrometry testing, quantitative screening for various allergens, and other tests.

(1) Clinical Basic Laboratory Testing

This specialty has more than 30 laboratory personnel, including several PhD and master's degree holders as well as key technical staff. Several personnel have undertaken further training and study at Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai or Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing. The specialty laboratory has internationally first-rate, modern medical-testing equipment, including 3 Sysmex blood-cell analysis lines, 1 fully automated blood-cell slide-reading instrument, 5 urine-analysis lines, nearly 10 fully automated coagulation analyzers, a platelet aggregometer, a high-sensitivity C-reactive-protein analyzer, a fully automated fecal analyzer, an ultra-high-magnification phase-contrast microscope, and multiple biological microscopes. The testing range includes routine analysis of blood, urine, stool, and various body fluids.

The specialty tests include thrombosis and hemostasis testing. In addition to the four coagulation items—PT, APTT, TT, and FIB—the department also performs D-Dimer testing, platelet-aggregation testing, lupus-anticoagulant testing, and testing of coagulation factors VIII, IX, XI, and AT, among others. These tests mainly assist clinical screening for or diagnosis of relevant conditions, including bleeding disorders, assessment of a prethrombotic state, disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), monitoring of drug therapy such as anticoagulant, thrombolytic, and antiplatelet therapy, antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, and preoperative examinations. The department also performs leukocyte counts and differentials on a fluid that the source describes with an apparent typographical error after ‘alveolar’; the term may have been intended to mean bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. This provides additional support and assistance for diagnosing pulmonary disease in patients of the respiratory department.

(2) Clinical Biochemistry

The department has a Hitachi sample-preparation system, a BECKMAN COULTER sample-preparation system, 3 HITACHI 7600-series fully automated biochemical analyzers, 1 BECKMAN AU5400 fully automated biochemical analyzer, a BECKMAN genetic-analysis system, a BIO-RAD D-10 glycated-hemoglobin analyzer, an ABL800 blood-gas analyzer, a VITROS 4600 dry-chemistry analyzer, a Sebia electrophoresis analyzer, a Helena electrophoresis analyzer, a trace-element analyzer, a Suoling electrochemiluminescence analyzer, fluorescence quantitative PCR, a SIEMENS VIVAE drug-concentration analyzer, and other instruments and equipment.

The department is mainly responsible for analyzing biochemical and PCR test items for specimens from throughout the hospital and specimens referred from outside the hospital. Test items include a complete biochemical panel, liver function, renal function, blood glucose, electrolytes, a lipid series, an enzyme series, body-fluid biochemistry, blood-gas analysis, serum-protein electrophoresis, urine-protein electrophoresis, cardiac markers, diabetes-related tests, drug concentrations, urinary iodine, and other tests. In addition to the routine biochemical items listed above, it provides emergency tests such as liver function, electrolytes, renal function, blood glucose, cholinesterase, amylase, and blood ammonia. It provides clinical testing for 13 respiratory-virus genetic tests, 16 genetic tests for pathogens associated with fever accompanied by rash, 17 genetic tests for pathogens associated with diarrhea, trace elements, TORCH testing for eugenics and reproductive health, hepatitis B DNA, CMV DNA, EB virus DNA, and other items.

The department meets the needs of clinical pharmacology experiments and provides the clinical pharmacology base with routine biochemical testing, as well as testing for serum iron, ferritin, total iron-binding capacity, and other items.

(3) Clinical Immunology

The department is equipped with a Roche fully automated electrochemiluminescence analyzer; Tecan and E-star fully automated enzyme-immunoassay analyzers; Abbott and Siemens fully automated chemiluminescence analyzers; a Siemens specific-protein analyzer; a time-resolved immunoassay analyzer; a Maglumi fully automated chemiluminescence analyzer; high-performance capillary electrophoresis equipment; and other large instruments and equipment. Their performance is excellent and their results are accurate.

The immunology group currently offers a complete range of laboratory tests, mainly including tumor markers, endocrine hormones, infectious-disease markers, specific proteins, eugenics and reproductive-health tests, liver fibrosis, and metabolic markers. It also performs thyroid-function tests, reproductive-antibody tests, growth-hormone testing, insulin and insulin-antibody testing, renin–angiotensin testing, aldosterone testing, and others. More than 200 test items are available. Autoantibody testing is among the foremost in Shandong Province, leading in both workload and testing level. Flow-cytometry testing has accumulated extensive experience in leukemia immunophenotyping.

(4) Clinical Microbiology

The group is equipped with 3 automated microbial specimen-inoculation instruments; 1 set of MALDI-TOF MS microbial mass-spectrometry identification equipment (Bruke); 4 sets of fully automated bacterial-identification and antimicrobial-susceptibility systems (Vitek 2 Compact, bioMérieux, France); 7 automated blood-culture instruments, including 3 BACTEC 9120 units and 4 BACTEC FX200 units from the United States; 1 microplate reader; 8 biosafety cabinets; 4 ultra-low-temperature freezers; 1 conventional PCR instrument; 6 CO2 incubators; and 7 conventional incubators.

The group can perform laboratory testing for difficult infections caused by bacteria, fungi, mycobacteria, viruses, and other pathogens, as well as healthcare-associated-infection and antimicrobial-resistance surveillance. It accepts specimens for all kinds of pathogen testing around the clock and reports critical values such as positive blood cultures throughout the day.

4. Research and Teaching

Over the past ten years, the department has undertaken more than 30 research projects at national, provincial, ministerial, departmental, and municipal levels; received more than 10 research-achievement awards at provincial, departmental, and municipal levels; participated in compiling 7 nationally unified laboratory-medicine textbooks; served as the principal translator of 3 works; participated in compiling more than 10 professional works; and published more than 30 SCI-indexed academic papers, more than 40 papers indexed by CA and EM, and more than 80 Zhonghua-level academic papers, among other outputs.

Department personnel currently hold concurrent positions in 27 academic and social organizations at national, provincial, and municipal levels. These positions include committee members of the Laboratory Medicine Branch of the Chinese Medical Association; national biochemistry council members; committee members of the Laboratory Committee of the Chinese Association of Integrated Traditional and Western Medicine; vice chairs and youth vice chairs of provincial professional societies; chairs and vice chairs of municipal professional societies; and deputy editors-in-chief, editorial-board members, and peer reviewers of professional academic journals at various levels in China and abroad.

Over the past three years, the department has published more than 80 papers in domestic and international publications at various levels; led 2 National Natural Science Foundation projects, 1 subproject of the 863 Program, 1 open research-fund project of a national key laboratory under the North Sea Branch of the State Oceanic Administration, and 1 special-fund project of the 2011 Shandong Postdoctoral Innovation Program; and has a total of 7 ongoing National Natural Science Foundation, provincial, and municipal science-and-technology projects. It has received 1 third prize for scientific and technological progress of Shandong Province, 1 second prize for scientific and technological progress of Qingdao, 1 third prize for a Shandong medical science and technology innovation achievement, and 1 third prize for natural sciences of Shandong Province, as well as more than 10 awards and patents in total. It has produced 23 papers and works at the Zhonghua level or above and more than 10 papers indexed by SCI and MED. It has carried out more than 60 new technologies and new projects and has received more than 1.4 million yuan in research funding. It organized the first national China–US Summit Forum on Medical Laboratory Science and established cooperative relationships with the Mayo Clinic, San Francisco General Hospital, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and other institutions. More than ten personnel have gone abroad for study or visits.

The Department of Laboratory Medicine implements standardized and meticulous management, simplifies procedures, provides integrated management and one-stop service, makes departmental affairs public, and implements institutionalized, democratic comprehensive quality management. It launched the service brand ‘Detect care, test sincerity’, advocates a first-inquiry responsibility system, and cultivates T-shaped professionals through diverse approaches. The department's talent pipeline is now appropriately structured, and it has developed into a modern comprehensive laboratory department with sound systems, standardized management, a solid foundation, an excellent departmental ethos, distinctive characteristics, strong development potential, and the ability to meet clinical needs, thereby laying a foundation for its further development.

5. Patient Visit Guide

(1) Department Locations

Shinan Campus: third and fourth floors of the former library building; third floor of the outpatient building (outpatient laboratory); first floor of the emergency building (emergency laboratory).

Laoshan Campus: second floor of the outpatient building.

West Coast Campus: second floor of the outpatient building; first floor of the outpatient building (emergency laboratory).

Shibei Campus: first floor of the outpatient building.

(2) Consultation Telephone Numbers

Shinan Campus: 82911229; 82911773.

Laoshan Campus: 82913085; 82913083.

West Coast Campus: 82919306; 82919388.

Shibei Campus: 82912736.

Note: If the numbers above are difficult to reach, please call the hospital's 96166 service hotline.