Since 1995, Reliable Business Intelligence for Clinical Laboratories, Pathology Groups and Laboratory Diagnostics

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark

Toronto Labs Stressed in Response To SARS Outbreak

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

THIS ISSUE OF THE DARK REPORT BRINGS SOME OF THE FIRST DETAILS about how the SARS outbreak in the Canadian Province of Ontario is causing widespread, sustained disruption to hospitals, laboratories, and office-based physicians, particularly in the Toronto metropolitan area. When the earliest SARS patients showed up in Ontario hospitals, international healthcare alerts had yet to be issued. Alarmingly […]

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Everyone Has an Opinion about Healthcare

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

IT’S NOT TOO OFTEN THAT YOU SEE A HEADLINE LIKE “U.S. Health System Care Has Collapsed.” Not only is it a startling proposition, but it is grammatically incorrect. The source of this proposition is His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In a press release dated February 23, 2003 from New Delhi, India, the Yogi “declared the U.S.

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Integrity Remains a Valued Business Asset

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

LATELY I SEEM TO BE LIVING UP TO MY ROLE as the “crusty curmudgeon.” The opinions and commentaries I contributed to these pages in recent issues of THE DARK REPORT triggered a considerable number of letters and feedback from our clients and regular readers. In particular, my observations about “Why There’s Bad Blood Against the

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The Lab Industry’s Market Share Juggernauts

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

MOST OF YOU KNOW THAT 2002 WAS AN UNEXPECTEDLY ACTIVE YEAR for public laboratory company acquisitions. The entire rank of mid-market public laboratory companies actively selling routine testing services to physicians’ offices was swept from the board by Quest Diagnostics Incorporated and Laboratory Corporation of America. Our office has been fielding a steady flow of questions

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Why There’s “Bad Blood” Against National Labs

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

I AM FREQUENTLY ASKED BY WALL STREET TYPES why there seems to be latent, even deep-seated animosity between a large number of local laboratories and both of the two blood brothers. They wonder why, for example, hospital laboratories aren’t more interested in doing collaborative ventures with either of the two national laboratories. Of course, the

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Grasping the Impact of the Genetic Revolution

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

IT’S BEEN SEVEN MONTHS since healthcare futurist Rick J. Carlson shared his insights about the impending genomic/proteomic revolution at the Executive War College in NewnOrleans last May. A key theme of his message was that diagnostic services would be squarely in the middle of the coming genetics tidal wave. Carlson, President of Health Strategies Group

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Patient Safety is Related to “Quality Management”

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

REMEMBER BACK IN 1997 WHEN LABORATORY COMPLIANCE PROGRAMS were mandated by Medicare officials? That was a big thing in the laboratory industry. Every laboratory organization in the United States scrambled to assess their laboratory’s operating practices, develop policies, and create a compliance manual that met regulatory requirements. THE DARK REPORT was first to predict this

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More Consolidation: Where Will It Lead?

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

I CERTAINLY DID NOT FORESEE ALL THE LAB ACQUISITION ACTIVITY that occurred during 2002. Compared to recent years, both Quest Diagnostics Incorporated and Laboratory Corporation of America have been on a buying spree this year. Quest Diagnostics acquired American Medical Laboratories in April and has an agreement to acquire Unilab Corporation, pending a decision by

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Why Do Michigan Hospital Labs “Have it Together?

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

WHAT MAKES HOSPITAL LABORATORY ADMINISTRATORS AND PATHOLOGISTS in Michigan so willing to be both innovative and collaborative in creating sophisticated and financially successful regional laboratory organizations? As you will read on pages 2-6, Michigan Co-Tenancy Laboratory (MCL), founded in 1997, is owned by 17 competing hospitals and provides shared testing services to more than 30

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Quiet Progress on the Med Tech Supply Crisis

Commentary and Opinion by R. Lewis Dark / R. Lewis Dark

QUIETLY, WITHOUT MUCH FANFARE, a growing number of laboratory administrators and pathologists are taking action to increase the supply of med techs in their community. It’s the unpublicized response to the headlines about the impending mass retirement of baby-boomer MTs and MLTs. This is a noteworthy story and THE DARK REPORT is proud, once again,

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