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

Volume XVIII No. 2 - February 7, 2011

More IVD Consolidation as Danaher Buys Beckman

TODAY IT WAS ANNOUNCED that Danaher Corporation would acquire Beckman Coulter, Inc., in a transaction valued at $5.8 billion. The news was not a surprise, since word had leaked out last December that Beckman’s board of director had engaged Goldman Sachs to advise it about a potential sale. For lab administrators and pathologists, the significance …

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$241 Million May Settle Quest Medi-Cal Claims

CEO SUMMARY: There’s movement in the negotiations between California state officials and Quest Diagnostics Incorporated over allegations that discounted lab test prices violated state law. In January, Quest disclosed that it had an “understanding” with California regulators and the amount of $241 million is part of the terms. It was also revealed that Medi-Cal payments …

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Expect Changes in How Calif. Labs Set Test Prices

CEO SUMMARY: What a difference two years makes. Back in April 2009, when then-Attorney General Jerry Brown joined the whistleblower lawsuit alleging that seven or more California lab companies had violated state law on pricing provider services, the popular wisdom among lab executives was that this case was going nowhere. Now, in recent weeks, the …

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Solstas Lab Partners, DNA Direct, Pathology, Inc., Slone Partners, PAML

SPECTRUM-CARILION NOW WILL BE CALLED SOLSTAS LAB PARTNERS IT IS THE NEXT STEP IN THE INTEGRATION of Spectrum Laboratory Network and Carilion Laboratories. Effective February 1, 2011, their combined businesses will use the name Solstas Lab Partners. Both Spectrum Lab Network, located in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Carilion, based in Roanoke, Virginia, were acquired by …

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Sunquest’s LIS Product First To Earn Certification from CCHIT

IF THERE WAS A RACE TO BE FIRST TO OFFER a laboratory information system (LIS) product that is certified to be compliant as an (EHR) electronic health record module by CCHIT, then Sunquest Information Systems, Inc., has attained that achievement. On January 21, 2011, the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT), an ONC-ATCB, issued …

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Putting Centrifuges Into Courier Cars For Mobile Processing

CEO SUMMARY: To improve the quality of lab services it provides to more than 300 skilled nursing facilities (SNF) while reducing costs, MuirLab of Concord, California, has created a “mobile specimen processing” solution. It operates a fleet of courier cars with centrifuges and refrigerated storage. Now specimens transported by these cars arrive at the core …

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Using Audits to Uncover Bad Data in the Lab

CEO SUMMARY: Labs using Lean, Six Sigma, and similar quality management methods are now putting these tools to a new purpose. They are being employed to validate the accuracy of metrics designed to monitor and manage work processes directly related to turnaround times and customer satisfaction. In auditing how such data is collected, lab administrators …

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February 7, 2011 “Intelligence: Late Breaking Lab News”

In Nigeria, the kidnap of a professor of pathology at the University of Uyno last month caused work stoppages by academic union members in protest of the government’s failure to protect medical faculty from the recent rash of kidnappings. Pathologist Dr. Memfin Ekpo was abducted by gunmen during a church service on January 16. His …

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