Meet the Laboratory Services Division Information Technology Team

What is the Laboratory Services Division? 

Laboratory Services Division (LSD) is a testing facility that delivers solutions to a breadth of clients in government, industry and academic sectors. The division proudly serves the analytical and diagnostic needs of the agriculture, food, environment and animal health industries with excellence and expertise. 

Laboratory Services is divided into two operational units across three locations:  

• Animal Health Laboratory (AHL) – located on the first two floors of the Department of Pathobiology,  is a facility that specializes in a wide array of tests to determine the health of a diverse group of animals and provide disease surveillance data for the province of Ontario. There is a secondary smaller laboratory located in Kemptville. 

• Agriculture and Food Laboratory (AFL) -  located at 95 Stone Rd W, offers a variety of high-value analytical and diagnostic services for the agricultural, government, food and veterinary sectors.  

Information Technology at Laboratory Services 

The Laboratory Services Information Technology (IT) department’s primary location is at 95 Stone Road, consisting of eight individuals who support the technology needs of Laboratory Services and the maintenance of business systems. Each team member has a specialized support area which includes hardware/software support, managed servers, database management and administration and more. LSD IT serves a diverse range of internal University clients as well as external clients like the Dairy Farmers of Ontario, the Ministry of Agriculture, Canadian Food Inspection Agency and more.  

On a daily basis, the team maintains all servers and backups to ensure their clients can connect to the services they need. They also have their own IT help services line that uses a ticketing system to delegate support to the appropriate areas.  

Laboratory Services Division is unlike other University departments, as it operates year-round and is only closed on Christmas day. 

Current Projects for LSD IT: 

• The Interactive Animal Pathogen Dashboard (IAPD) is an initiative from the AHL and funded by the Food for Thought program. The IAPD project was two years in the making and came to fruition in June 2022 with the goal to support users in developing strategic solutions for navigating pathogens in Ontario. The dashboards display current and historical pathogenic trends impacting the Ontario food animal industry. To view the dashboards, visit the IAPD site.   

• LSD Intranet Launch: LSD launched their own intranet called LS-Connect on SharePoint in June 2022. The site was built to bring staff together and eliminate silos between units. The goal is to create connections between divisions by sharing staff highlights and projects and embracing the culture at LSD.  

Success Story: Navigating the COVID-19 Pandemic as an Essential Service 

Laboratory Services Division is deemed an essential service by the University, which meant LSD staff were required to be onsite during the remote-work portion of the COVID-19 pandemic. The many restrictions for in-person work impacted the way the LSD IT team was able to deliver services to their clients, leading the team to rethink their working model. This meant implementing a rotation schedule and significantly reducing the number of staff onsite. Their agility and resilience helped ensure that the critical business systems were managed and monitored and important project work continued, all while maintaining a working environment that safeguarded the physical and mental health of the team.  

“The team did an excellent job weathering the COVID-19 storm and rallied together to ensure that our customer needs were always met.”  – Pauline Nelson-Smikle, Manager of Information Technology, LSD 

Lab Services Division is Celebrating 25 Years  

Laboratory Services Division is celebrating 25 years with the University. Previous to this, the division fell under the Ministry of Agriculture.  Technology at LSD has evolved over the years from highly manual processes to complex laboratory information management systems, development of automated services including direct instrument interfacing, adaptation of new hardware technology, and the expansion of the IT team. The team continues to innovate and deliver exceptional IT services to their clients in the years to come.