Robert Michel
Until Robert L. Michel came along and founded The Dark Intelligence Group (DIG) two decades ago, the clinical laboratory industry and the anatomic pathology profession lacked a trustworthy source for information about the management and operations of medical laboratories. From its inception in 1995, The Dark Report quickly became the “go to” source of industry intelligence, innovations in lab management, and strategic market analysis.
This excellence in reporting has earned recognition from his peers. For example, twice Michel and The Dark Report have won national awards for best investigative reporting by the Specialty Information Publishers Association. In 2005, the award was for Michel’s coverage about how the anatomic pathology condominium laboratories (pod labs) operated by urologists and gastroenterologists came to be, who operated them, and how these owners marketed the AP condo labs to other physician groups. In 2009, Michel’s award for best investigative reporting resulted from his published interviews with Quest Diagnostics Incorporated when the company admitted that, for a period of 18 months, it had been reported inaccurate Vitamin 25(OH) D results because of problems with its laboratory-developed test methodology. The Dark Report’s story was picked up by The New York Times and was in the national news cycle for several days.
In his role as Editor-in-Chief, Michel brought unique capabilities to DIG and The Dark Report. His management training and diverse business experience—along with his skills as a concise writer and analyst—proved to be a winning combination for readers of The Dark Report. For that reason, Michel’s story has many intriguing elements.
Immediately prior to founding DIG, he had served in several executive positions for Nichols Institute based in Portland, Oregon, and San Juan Capistrano, California. This was during the time that Nichols Institute was an independent public lab company with annual revenues of about $280 million (prior to its acquisition by MetPath, Inc., now Quest Diagnostics Incorporated). He traveled extensively to many of the clinical lab business units owned by Nichols Institute in different regions of the United States and played a role in formulating effective market strategies in response to the emergence of closed-panel HMOs, capitated pricing, and full-risk managed care contracts, among other successful management initiatives.
Prior to his service at Nichols Institute, Michel served at three different Fortune 100 companies. These were Procter & Gamble, Centex Corporation, and Financial Corp. of America. Each was an opportunity to master new management techniques and apply them in different industries. Between these positions, he gained experience as an entrepreneur, having founded a real estate development firm and a general contracting company in the Southeastern United States.
Robert Michel earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he played rugby, a sport he participated in for another 22 years. He is a native of California and grew up in Santa Ana.
Articles by Robert Michel
Global Laboratory Trends Dominated by Rising Costs and Labor Shortage
“The Web has transformed many industries and it’s clearly affected our industry. This trend will help raise the bar in quality and overall performance among laboratories and manufacturers.” —Jim Reid-Anderson Chairman, President, and CEO of Dade Behring…
June 25, 2007 “Intelligence: Late Breaking Lab News”
It should be boom time for companies selling Clinical Information Systems (CIS). A research report from Millennium Research Group (MRG) of Waltham, Massachusetts, predicts that patient safety programs will fuel a demand by health systems for CIS products. The report, “U.S. Markets …
Quest Wants It Both Ways with Payer Contracts
CEO SUMMARY: Once again, public laboratory companies are pursuing short-term strategies that promise competitive advantage to themselves. But these strategies also carry long term risks that could burden the entire laboratory industry. Contradictions in the current cycle of competition fo…
Inverness Buys Biosite, Has New Venture with P&G
CEO SUMMARY: On the same day that Inverness Medical Innovations announced that it would acquire Biosite, thus beating out Beckman Coulter in the bidding war for Biosite, Inverness also announced that it had entered into a joint venture with Procter & Gamble. Together, the two companie…
Community Hospital Builds Thriving Lab Outreach Program
CEO SUMMARY: When 330-bed Botsford Hospital of Farmington Hills, Michigan, got interested in laboratory outreach 10 years ago, it brought in a new laboratory leader, invested in new analyzers and informatics, and then let the quality of the operation attract new business from the communit…
Labs Are Finding Ways to Link Variety of EMRs
CEO SUMMARY: Three speakers at the Executive War College last month in Miami, Florida, offered case studies on how labs are developing electronic interface gateways between their LISes and EMRs in the offices of client physicians. Physician clients frequently want lab data to be among the…
June 4, 2007 “Intelligence: Late Breaking Lab News”
When the Lab Quality Confab convenes in Atlanta on September 19-20, 2007, it will feature 40 speakers and sessions on how labs and pathology groups are using quality management methods to improve the performance of their lab organizations. If your laboratory would like to showcase its succes…
LabCorp & Sunrise CEOs Score at Exec War College
CEO SUMMARY: This year’s Executive War College on Lab and Pathology Management delivered major surprises, along with first news of breakthrough innovations and emerging trends. Managed care contracting for lab testing services was this year’s premier topic and there was keen interest …
Beckman Coulter, Biosite, Inverness, MedTox, Group Health, Henry Ford, Johns Hopkins
BECKMAN COULTER HOPES TO COMPLETE ACQUISITION OF BIOSITE FINGERS ARE CROSSED at Beckman Coulter, Inc., as the company hopes to complete its acquisition of Biosite, Inc., by tomorrow night (May 15 at midnight). Its original offer to …
Emerging Global Trends in How Labs Are Using “Distributed Computing”
“In several different countries, laboratories already use ‘distributed computing’, in the form of a single LIS data center that provides informatics services to as many as 25 laboratories in a region. The trend is to increase interoperability and portability of the i…
CURRENT ISSUE
Volume XXXII, No. 10 – July 14, 2025
This issue is strong on different flavors of enforcement that clinical laboratories, whether they want to or not, will need to contend with. Lab stakeholders provide insights that medical labs need to brace for more action to counter pending test reimbursement rate cuts under PAMA. Also, this issue provides the legal and regulatory landscape for clinical labs’ use of AI and how it evolves with the technology. AI is creating legal uncertainty for clinical labs, especially around data privacy and FDA oversight of AI tools in diagnostics.
See the full table of contentsHow Much Laboratory Business Intelligence Have You Missed?
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