In Canada, Clinical Pathology Laboratories Face Growing Lab Test Utilization and Shrinking Lab Test Budgets
DATELINE: Toronto, Ontario, Canada—This week, clinical laboratory and pathology leaders from across Canada gathered here at the fifth Executive Edge conference to assess the state of medical laboratory testing in Canada’s different provinces. One message in the provocative sessions was clear and consistent; ever more volumes of lab testing will continue to hit clinical laboratories, even as provincial health authorities squeeze lab testing budgets in coming years.
It means that, going forward, clinical laboratories in Canada will be asked to perform growing numbers of tests without a comparable increase in lab budgets or reimbursements. Most speakers recognized this primary trend. In her presentation, Tammy Hofer, Vice President of Laboratory Services for the Alberta Health System, observed that the number of medical laboratory tests performed across the province is increasing at approximately 6% per year. In the province, there are 133 clinical laboratories and they perform approximately 60 million tests per year for Alberta’s population, which currently numbers 3.7 million people.
Another speaker during Monday’s sessions that tackled the subject of growing utilization of clinical laboratory testing was James Tucker, Principal of the Boston Consulting Group. Tucker is based in Toronto. He described the medical laboratory testing industry as a “burning platform” because the demand for lab testing will continue to outpace payment and funding paid to the labs which perform this testing.
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