Dynacare uses Microsoft Surface devices to optimize total cost of ownership, enhancing operational efficiency and value in just four months

Dynacare provides diagnostic testing and lab services to healthcare providers across Canada. Many of its services help providers diagnose cancer, HIV, and other life-threatening diseases. These diagnoses must be provided as quickly as possible to help patients get started with essential treatments. 

Dynacare leadership is committed to providing better and more efficient services for providers and their patients as well as smoother workdays for employees. Dynacare’s leaders invested in its future by creating innovative strategies based on technological solutions, such as Microsoft Surface devices, which helped the company increase efficiency for some of its more manual and time-consuming processes, such as sorting through samples and paperwork.

Offering testing and healthcare services to thousands of Canadians 

With a history dating back more than 50 years, Canada-based Dynacare supplies providers and patients with crucial medical laboratory services for the effective prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of health concerns. After COVID-19, Dynacare saw the opportunity to improve its practices with new technology. “We wanted to make some big changes to the technology footprint in the organization to accelerate our growth, help more Canadians, and truly become a health services company, not just a diagnostic provider,” says Cameron Chojnacki, Director of Technical Solutions and Information Security at Dynacare. “We want to be leaders in embracing the idea of bringing technology into healthcare.”

Dynacare’s broader IT team was actively reviewing opportunities to improve the way in which it delivered the status of results to its patients and clients. They found that one challenging aspect in the process was tracking test samples through the life cycle. Samples came in from a clinic in larger batches, all filed under a single barcode connecting them to that clinic. However, while some samples needed to wait for diagnosis, others were urgent and needed to be returned to providers quickly. If a provider called for a specific result, Dynacare employees would have to manually find the correct one amid a collection of samples and paperwork.

Dynacare realized that this lengthy process was hindering the company from providing the best possible services to providers and their patients. It turned to Microsoft for a modern solution to revolutionize its operations. 

Optimizing security and flexibility with Microsoft technology

Dynacare’s IT team wanted to provide employees with a device that would make their jobs easier and, in turn, improve the lives of the patients they serve. Chojnacki believed that Microsoft had the tools Dynacare needed moving forward. “I asked the team if they could find a better value proposition than what Microsoft offered,” says Chojnacki. “They came back and said that Microsoft offered the best option because of total cost of ownership (TCO), the life of the device, the quality of the device, and the integrations.” 

Dynacare also knew that it needed devices that would provide optimal security for patients and the flexibility to work with the tools the company was already using. “We’re running some of the most sensitive tests that you can do in Canada, so security has to be top of mind,” says Chojnacki. Not only did the built-in security of Surface devices meet the organization’s needs, but the devices also offer the flexibility needed to work smoothly with the company’s x86 architecture, which is essential for interfacing seamlessly across its laboratory software. 

Simplifying the employee workload in just four months

In 2023, Dynacare began deploying Surface Laptop 5 and Surface Pro 9 devices in one of its main labs, a process that took only four months from ideation to implementation. It incorporated the technology and tools it was already using into both the devices and Microsoft 365, which it uses for internal team collaboration and coordinating internal scientific exercises, in an incredibly simple process for both the IT team and the employees needing to use the devices. “There wasn’t a lot of training necessary,” says Chojnacki. “It’s so standardized that people just know how to use it.” 

Now, employees can more easily track samples by scanning or entering them into the Surface devices. “We’ve added work but not increased the time of that work,” says Chojnacki. “The job is easier, the work they have to do is taking less time, and they’re feeling satisfied and engaged because they can give those urgent results to doctors or patients much more quickly.” 

Dynacare expects that using Surface devices will lead to a significant improvement in TCO due to the reduced need for support, increased security, and enduring quality of the devices. Surface devices offer flexibility, ease of use, and reliability for employees across the organization. “We used to have regular problems with our equipment, but we have yet to have a failure of a Surface device,” says Chojnacki. “We don’t have to do service calls on a regular basis because it just works.” 

While implementing its new solution, Dynacare intends to use Windows Autopilot to deploy Surface devices more easily. This solution will make it simple for the IT team to set up devices and let them run without providing a lot of extra support. Using this technology, it is prepared for the next steps in adding new solutions and creating opportunities for innovation across the organization. 

Moving toward greater employee experiences with Microsoft

Dynacare is committed to continuing its work with Microsoft to increase benefits for employees and clients. As it expands Surface devices to more labs, it also wants to provide more password-free forms of identity verification, such as badge or facial recognition, to make signing in faster and easier for employees who regularly wear gloves in their work. 

Ultimately, with support from Microsoft, Dynacare is moving toward optimized business operations for employees across its organization, from executives to knowledge workers. “It’s in our interest as leaders to find services that are going to make life simple for everyone so that they have more time and energy to face complex decisions in their work,” says Chojnacki. “The simplicity that you get from Surface while maintaining the posture you’d expect from a premium product is the answer we were looking for.”