Billie’s Corner
Reflecting on 2021: A Challenging, Rewarding Year
By Billie Whitehurst, CEO
What a challenging and rewarding year it’s been! Faced with unprecedented demands and tremendous accomplishments, our laboratory partners continue to pull together to address the COVID-19 pandemic and to drive healthcare improvements. At Orchard, we are proud to work alongside the laboratory community to make positive contributions to patient care and public health. This year, Orchard played a lead role in enabling our customers to perform rapid, large-scale COVID-19 testing using Orchard’s enterprise lab, molecular, outreach, and point-of-care solutions, including support for university COVID-19 testing using PCR and point-of-care tests. We’ve had the privilege and the opportunity to support our customers on the front line by responding to critical testing needs and improving patient care at such a crucial time.
Our acquisition of Corwen, LLC has allowed us to add a robust molecular testing solution to our product offerings. With the addition of our new molecular solution, we are continuing to grow and innovate to serve our industry and lead the market. Including the addition of the Corwen team, we’ve added many new faces and incredible talent across the organization.
Keeping a keen eye on the industry, we are aware of the ongoing staff shortages and the need to continue to develop functionality that helps you address this challenge by leveraging efficiency and productivity-boosting LIS tools. As such, we have continued to make product improvements, including significant enhancements to our cloud and security infrastructure. We are currently developing an enterprise toxicology solution, while at the same time, continuing to invest in Orchard Harvest enhancements and performance improvements.
Orchard’s team has also bolstered its service and support options with multiple alternatives available to allow customers to choose the level of support that they need and new eLearning training opportunities to help with end-user training. The team has also focused on features and tools that will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our product installation process and make our solutions easier to support.
Our products and services continue to advance and rise to the top, as demonstrated by your feedback and loyalty. We have transitioned to NPS surveys to provide an industry standard way of measuring our performance. Orchard continues to rank within the “excellent” category and will strive to continue to improve and serve you in a world-class way. Orchard is proud of the work that our lab partners provide to support public health and patient care and of the determination and perseverance that laboratory professionals demonstrate in the face of new challenges. Thank you for your dedication and your steadfast contributions to our healthcare system and our community.
