Aug 10, 2012 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing
Goal is to maintain community pathology services while expanding subspecialty pathology expertise to offer more laboratory testing services to physicians
Two of Washington State’s largest anatomic pathology groups announced their intention to merge earlier this week. When completed, the combined pathology supergroup will number 36 board-certified pathologists and will have large histology laboratories in both the western and eastern regions of Washington.
The merger will bring together the pathologists of InCyte Pathology of Spokane with Eastside Pathology Incorporated of Bellevue. Although InCyte has 25 pathologists and Eastside has 11 pathologists, leaders at both pathology groups told Dark Daily that each group considers this a merger of equals. This is one key to understanding why this merger is happening. (more…)
Jun 10, 2011 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Clinical laboratory outreach program at Catholic Medical Center sees new lab competitors entering the Manchester market
DATELINE: MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE—Here in the Granite State, clinical laboratories and pathology groups must respond to a growing number of healthcare market trends. This was obvious to your Dark Daily Editor during his site visit earlier this week to the medical laboratory at Catholic Medical Center, which is one of Manchester’s major hospitals.
Often, states with relatively small populations, like New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, have the luxury of watching the latest healthcare trends emerge first in the major urban centers like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. However, the accelerating pace of change across all of healthcare is changing that situation.
In Manchester, New Hampshire, competition among hospitals in the community is quite intense. According to Roberta E. Provencal, Director of Laboratory Services at Catholic Medical Center, there is equally intense competition in the outreach market for both clinical laboratory testing and anatomic pathology services. “Manchester has about 110,000 people, and there are 1.3 million in all of New Hampshire,” observed Provencal. “Yet, even though these are not large healthcare markets, we have more lab competitors marketing to doctors’ offices in our city than at any time in the past 20 years. (more…)
Apr 19, 2011 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
As automation transforms the manual work processes in the histopathology laboratory, “floaters” may become a thing of the past
Any histotechnologist and pathologist familiar with the manual work processes commonly in use in histopathology laboratories knows about “floaters.” These are the pesky artifacts that are a consequence of the common practice of manually processing tissue through the series of H&E linear baths required for the proper staining of these samples prior to analysis by anatomic pathologists.
“Floaters” are a relevant example of why manual work processes in the histopathology laboratory can be the source of errors and mistakes. Certain types of floaters—including floaters consisting of malignant tissue fragments—have the potential to contaminate the patient specimen. This can negatively impact patient safety and even contribute to a misdiagnosis of the patient. Moreover, the issue of floaters has been around for decades, because the manual work processes involving the H&E (hematoxylin and eosin stain) linear baths have remained relatively unchanged during this time.
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Sep 4, 2009 | Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Applying principals of analytic chemistry to advance value of histopathology
In Bergamo, Italy, a vision of “patient first” anatomic pathology is under construction in a unique way. At the corporate headquarters of Milestone Medical, Founder, President and self styled “Chief Dreamer” Franco Visinoni is actively investing to develop pre-analytical tools and products specifically designed to support same day—or faster—diagnoses by pathologists.
This week, your Dark Daily Editor Robert L. Michel visited Visinoni in Bergamo to learn, first-hand, about this company which has a rather low profile in the United States.
(more…)
Feb 9, 2009 | Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
UniPath of Denver, Colorado sells its Technical Laboratories
February 9, 2009
Having shopped itself to a number of interested buyers in recent years, pathology supergroup UniPath, LLC, in Denver, Colorado, has sold its histology laboratory operations to American Pathology Partners (APP) , of Brentwood, Tennessee. It keeps full ownership of its pathology professional corporation, which has an agreement to provide services to APP.
This acquisition has several interesting and innovative aspects. These are analyzed in detail in the current issue of The Dark Report. (See “Denver’s UniPath Sells Its Histology Labs to APP”, The Dark Report, February 2, 2009) Probably the most significant fact is that American Pathology Partners now has a platform lab that enables it to immediately begin seeking new business. That may mean that local pathology groups in the Rocky Mountain states and further west will have a new pathology player in the marketplace.
“This partnership advances APP’s vision of joining with the country’s top pathologists, aligning incentives, and working together to improve the delivery of exceptional care,” said CEO Bob Yeager of APP. “APP will market UniPath’s services to small pathology groups of two, three, or more physicians on the west coast and on the east coast as well. APP has financial support from New Enterprise Associates, a venture capital firm in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
UniPath, LLC, has been a successful, aggressive pathology competitor within the Rocky Mountain Region. The company has a 40,000 square foot central laboratory in Denver, on-site labs in 11 hospitals in Colorado, and expertise in all pathology subspecialties. Among its 120 employees are 21 Board-certified pathologists, 19 of whom are partners in the professional corporation. The other two are on a partnership track. UniPath executives told Dark Daily that, in 2008, UniPath analyzed 173,000 patient cases generating 363,000 specimens, about two thirds of which originate from physicians’ offices and one third come from hospital procedures.
Under the terms of the new business arrangement, APP now owns and manages UniPath’s central laboratory in Denver, along with its 120 employees, and the on-site laboratories in 11 hospitals in Colorado. UniPath gets funding to support expansion, investment in technology and lab equipment, and sales support. As noted earlier, UniPath’s physicians continue to own and manage the professional corporation.
“As president of the professional corporation, what I found attractive about APP was they wanted to keep the professional corporation (PC) absolutely intact,” said Karim Sirgi, M.D., President of UniPath.in his interview with The Dark Report. “They allowed the PC to keep its independence with regard to decision making, staffing, and how to apply national and regional standards on the quality of care UniPath provides to referring physicians.”
Until its sale to American Pathology Partners, UniPath’s growth has come from: a) mergers and acquisitions of pathology groups in the Denver area; and, b) by investing in a regional and national marketing and sales program, funded by the partner-pathologists. UniPath’s pathologists believe their new business agreement with APP will help fuel growth in and beyond the Rocky Mountain market.
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