How Northwell’s Lab Team Demonstrated Value Over 10 Years

By Joseph Burns

CEO SUMMARY: Among hospital administrators, the popular wisdom is that their clinical lab is a cost center. This thinking leads them to consider drastic cost-management strategies that include partnering with commercial labs to manage in-hospital lab testing and the outright sale of lab o…

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Boyce & Bynum Sells to Quest Diagnostics

By Joseph Burns | From the Volume XXV No. 18 – December 24, 2018 Issue

CEO SUMMARY: With the year end approaching, lab buyers and sellers are working to finalize deals that may have been in discussion for months. The first big lab acquisition for this season came on Nov. 27, when Quest Diagnostics announced it was acquiring Boyce and Bynum Pathology Laborato…

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U of Florida Health Improves Patient Care with PGx Testing

By Joseph Burns | From the Volume XXV No. 17 – December 3, 2018 Issue

CEO SUMMARY: Since 2011, the University of Florida Health System has used pharmacogenetic test (PGx) results to guide physicians when they prescribe certain drugs. This initiative has improved patient outcomes, reduced the overall cost per episode of care, and gained partial reimbursemen…

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Pap Test Errors in Ireland Attributed to Quest, CPL

By Joseph Burns | From the Volume XXV No. 10 – July 9, 2018 Issue

CEO SUMMARY: In Ireland, the big story in healthcare at the moment is the discovery that the nation’s cervical cancer screening program has failed hundreds of women who had pre-cancerous conditions or cervical cancer, but, as alleged in numerous court cases, their tests were inaccurate …

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Sale of Tox Lab Company Attracted Multiple Buyers

By Joseph Burns | From the Volume XXV No. 4 – March 5, 2018 Issue

CEO SUMMARY: In the midst of expanding their toxicology testing services nationally, DrugScan and DSI Medical Services (collectively Toxicology Holdings Inc.) hired a brokerage firm last year to pursue a sale of the two toxicology companies. Multiple potential buyers responded with intere…

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To Grow Nationally, NY Lab Buys Tox Labs

By Joseph Burns | From the Volume XXV No. 2 – January 22, 2018 Issue

CEO SUMMARY: It is unusual when a regional health system’s clinical lab company acquires a commercial lab company outside its geographic home. But that’s what happened in December when Rochester Regional Health System’s subsidiary, ACM Global Laboratories, acquired a toxicology test…

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Labs Begin Applying Lean to Cut Costs, Add Value

By Joseph Burns | From the Volume XXIV No. 15 – October 30, 2017 Issue

CEO SUMMARY: In more than 40 presentations by 55 speakers, two big themes dominated the 11th annual Lab Quality Confab in New Orleans last week. One theme is the urgent need to cut clinical laboratory costs. The second theme is the need for both clinical labs and anatomic pathology groups…

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To Add Value, Focus on Patient Care

By R. Lewis Dark | From the Volume XXIV No. 15 – October 30, 2017 Issue

FOR THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS, and particularly since Congress passed the Patient Access to Medicare Act in 2014, clinical labs have focused on controlling costs, as they should. After all, PAMA calls …

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October 30, 2017 Intelligence: Late Breaking Lab News

By R. Lewis Dark | From the Volume XXIV No. 15 – October 30, 2017 Issue

In a development that has implications for medical laboratories in developed nations, healthcare organizations in Africa have launched a “landmark electronic referral project” to digitally track workers who travel to South Africa to work in the mining industry. The project is being administered …

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California Pathology Labs to Report Data to State’s Cancer Registry

By Joseph Burns | From the Volume XXIV No. 11 – August 7, 2017 Issue

HEALTHCARE BIG DATA IS ADVANCING in California and all pathologists in the Golden State will be required to submit data to the state’s cancer registry beginning in 2019. California’s new law to support the state’s cancer registry is the latest example of an effort to ensure the timely collecti…

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