November 2025

The future is already here, but are labs equipped to embrace it?

The future is already here, it is just not evenly distributed. Nowhere does that feel more accurate than in the world of pathology and cancer reporting. Recently, our team at Labflow met with a cancer registry that manages tens of thousands of cancer notifications every year. Their work is essential. It drives public health insights, informs cancer control strategies and supports better outcomes for patients across their region.

Yet despite the critical nature of their role, the technology they rely on tells a different story.‍

A modern health system built on outdated infrastructure

Cancer registries receives notifications from local and interstate pathology labs. In theory, these should integrate seamlessly. In practice, the workflow looks very different.

While some data arrives via HL7 and secure, structured feeds, a significant portion still comes through fax, secure email, spreadsheets and manual file transfers. Each notifier uses a slightly different process. Each file arrives in a different structure. And each inconsistency needs to be managed by a small team with limited resources.

The technology to automate this work already exists. Middleware can unify formats. AI can identify notifiable cancers. Routing software can send the right data to the right place automatically. But much of the sector simply is not equipped to adopt it.

This is the distribution problem. Cutting-edge tools are available, but the organisations that need them most often lack the infrastructure, funding or capacity to deploy them.

AI and interoperability have already changed what is possible

At Labflow we are seeing that shift firsthand. LabConductor, our interoperability middleware, powered by secure AI, can interpret HL7, PDFs and unstructured reports, classify SNOMED codes, detect notifiable cancers and route them instantly and accurately. The performance consistently exceeds manual workflows, especially at scale.

These capabilities are not future concepts. They are working today inside Australian laboratories.

The issue is not whether the technology exists. It is whether laboratories and registries can access it.

Small teams, large workloads and a growing data burden

A common theme we hear from many of our client discussions is the reality they face: small IT teams, ageing systems and an increasing volume of complex notifications.

This gap between available innovation and operational capacity creates real risk. Manual processes are slower, harder to maintain and dependent on individual expertise. As workloads grow, it becomes more challenging to ensure timelines, consistency and data quality.

The result is a healthcare system that relies on world-class professionals, but runs on infrastructure that has fallen behind.

Closing the gap with modern interoperability

This is precisely why we built LabConductor.

LabConductor is designed to remove the barriers that prevent organisations from modernising their data exchange. It replaces manual uploads and fax-based workflows with automated, secure interoperability that adapts to any system. Whether data arrives as FHIR, HL7, PDF, CSV or unstructured text, LabConductor standardises and routes it without friction.

It gives laboratories and registries the ability to adopt advanced capabilities without needing large teams, large budgets or long digital transformation cycles.

A sector on the edge of a technological shift

The Australian pathology landscape is changing. Digital pathology is expanding. Interstate reporting is increasing. National registries are collaborating more closely than ever.

To keep pace, the underlying digital infrastructure needs to evolve.

The future has arrived. The challenge now is distribution. At Labflow, our focus is ensuring that every lab, every registry and every notifier can access the tools they need to operate efficiently, accurately and confidently.

Because better interoperability does not only benefit organisations. It benefits clinicians, policymakers and, most importantly, patients.