The newly approved legislation will “eliminate regulations preventing patients from learning about diagnostic testing and services provided by local clinical laboratories,” according to a press release issued by the Pennsylvania Senate Republicans.
Republican state Senator Rosemary Brown was the bill’s primary sponsor. She was joined as co-sponsors by a bipartisan group of colleagues.
“The regulations prevent patients from learning about clinical laboratories and the services they provide,” Brown said in the press release. “Patients deserve to know about their options when they are selecting a clinical laboratory to perform these important tests and procedures.”
The press release noted that Pennsylvania is the only state that prohibits clinical laboratories from advertising to residents.
“It’s time for Pennsylvania to catch up with the rest of the nation and enable patients to have access to this information,” said co-sponsor of the bill Republican Senator Tracy Pennycuick (above) in a press release. “Our bill would enable advertising while maintaining the important consumer protection provisions that ensure tests and procedures can only be performed based on a doctor’s order.” Once enacted into law, clinical laboratories in Pennsylvania will be able to advertise their services just like labs in other US states. (Photo copyright: Montgomery County Republican Committee.)
Details of Senate Bill 712
The bill applies to clinical laboratory tests ordered by licensed healthcare practitioners and performed by the medical laboratories themselves. Labs are prohibited from making claims “about the reliability and validity of the testing that is inconsistent with the testing proficiency standards” in federal law, the bill states, and labs must disclose that the test “may or may not be covered by health insurance.”
Brown, Pennycuick, and co-sponsor Republican Senator Lynda Schlegel Culver, discussed the need for the new legislation in a March 2023 memo, observing that 70% of healthcare decisions are influenced by clinical laboratory tests.
“As our state and the nation’s healthcare system continues to grow and evolve, consumers are demanding greater transparency and to be more engaged in how healthcare is delivered to them,” they wrote, adding that the state’s current restrictions are “outdated.”
“We believe permitting outreach to Pennsylvania consumers with accurate, scientifically based diagnostic information can be a source of personalized, highly relevant insight to help foster better, more informed dialogue with licensed healthcare providers, which enables Pennsylvania consumers to take action to improve their health,” they wrote.
“Patients should have access to information about the services and procedures available at their local clinical laboratories,” said Senator Culver in the press release. “I want to make sure patients can make informed decisions about where and how to obtain these important health services. Our bill would remove the gag order on this specific set of healthcare services.”
Similar legislation, HB1558, sponsored by Republican Representative Paul Schemel, is currently pending in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives.
Larger Push for Healthcare Consumerism
Dark Daily and our sister publication The Dark Report have reported extensively about the rise of consumerism in healthcare—including factors such as price transparency—as it applies to medical laboratories.
And in “Millennials Set to Reorder Healthcare and Lab Testing,” The Dark Report advised clinical laboratories on the need to reconfigure key aspects of their services to accommodate the rising numbers of Millennials in the workforce. For example, these consumers are accustomed to using mobile devices to interact with retailers and want the same convenience when obtaining healthcare services from doctors and labs.
Global management consulting firm McKinsey and Company addressed many of these issues in report titled, “Driving Growth through Consumer Centricity in Healthcare.” The authors suggested that healthcare providers need to “redefine the consumer experience” by emulating “consumer-focused companies in other sectors” with “personalized offerings and services, value-based pricing, and an elevated experience—all from distinctive, high-quality brands.”
The report also noted that providers still have a lot of work to do. “Many consumers believe that the health system does not support their care needs, and they perceive that the quality of their healthcare is negatively affected by their personal attributes, including income, insurance coverage, weight, and age, among other factors,” the authors wrote.
Huron, a healthcare consulting company, identified five current trends in healthcare consumerism based on a survey of US consumers, Healthcare Dive reported. They are:
Greater digital functionality, including telehealth, wearable devices to report health data, and mobile apps for scheduling, communication, and payment.
Affordability, shorter wait times, and online ratings as factors driving consumers to choose providers.
Accurate diagnoses and effective treatment plans as drivers of consumer satisfaction.
Increasing demand for technology-enabled conveniences such as virtual care.
More price transparency in response to concerns about affordability.
Pennsylvania’s decision to join the rest of the nation and allow clinical laboratories to advertise their services may be evidence that the growing number of consumers who want direct access to medical care and the ability to choose their provider—be it hospital, physician, or clinical laboratory—are encouraging the pathology and medical laboratory professions to lobby their state lawmakers to make it easier to advertise their services to the public.
Healthcare providers of all types will benefit from acknowledging Gen Z’s preference for digital interactions, self-testing, and over-the-counter medications
Each generation has its own unique connection to how it manages its health, and the latest studies into the healthcare habits of Generation Z (aka, Gen Z or Zoomers) are providing valuable insight that savvy clinical laboratory managers and pathologists—in fact all healthcare providers—can use to better serve their Gen Z patients.
According to McKinsey and Company, Gen Z’s “identity has been shaped by the digital age, climate anxiety, a shifting financial landscape, and COVID-19.” And Pew Research states that Zoomers “are also digital natives who have little or no memory of the world as it existed before smartphones.”
As the largest demographic, “Gen Z stands 2.6 billion members strong. … Globally, they hold purchasing power of more than $500 billion and mobile buying power of $143 billion,” wrote Stacy Rapacon, Managing Editor at Senior Executive Media, in an article she penned for HP’s The Garage.
Meeting Gen Zers’ healthcare needs on their terms would seem to be a judicious choice.
“Gen-Z’s buying power may exceed $3 trillion,” wrote Bernhard Schroeder (above), a clinical lecturer on integrated/online marketing at San Diego State University, in Forbes. “Their spending ability exceeds the gross domestic product of all but about 25 of the world’s countries.” Thus, it behooves healthcare leaders, including clinical laboratory managers and pathologists, to consider how best to approach treating Gen Z patients. (Photo copyright: San Diego State University.)
Gen Z Leads in Digital Healthcare Use, Self-testing, OTC Drugs
“Gen Z engages in every type of digital healthcare activity more than other generations,” a recent study by PYMNTS noted. A total of 2,735 consumers were surveyed, and though all reported using digital healthcare to some degree, Gen Z stood out.
Patient portal access was the highest digital method accessed by Zoomers (62%), followed by telemedicine appointment usage (55%), the PYMNTS report found.
Knowing the direction Gen Z is trending may lead clinical laboratory leaders to expect self-testing to be on the rise, and that hunch would be correct. “There are two converging trends; the rise of women’s health technology and increased use of at-home sample collection for diagnosis tests,” Clinical Lab Products reported.
“Ongoing innovation in these areas could significantly improve the accessibility of women’s health testing. It will also have repercussions for labs, potentially changing the way samples are received and processed, and the way results are distributed. The quantity and quality of samples may be impacted, too. It’s important for labs to be aware of likely developments so they can prepare, and potentially collaborate with the health technology companies driving change,” CLP noted.
Another area feeling the impact of Gen Z’s healthcare spending is the over-the-counter (OTC) drug market.
“Since the pandemic began, more Americans are paying closer attention to their symptoms and looking for easily accessible information about over-the-counter medications, especially for allergies, coughs, and headaches,” said Kim Castro, Editor and Chief Content Officer for US News and World Report, in a press release.
Zoomers Want Healthcare on Their Own Terms
Gen Z grew up with the internet, Amazon, Netflix, Google, and social media since birth.
“The ‘norm’ they experienced as children was a world that operated at speed, scale, and scope. They developed an early facility with powerful digital tools that allowed them to be self-reliant as well as collaborative,” anthropologist Roberta Katz, PhD, a senior research scholar at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) told Stanford News.
As digital natives, Gen Z can be more science and data driven and yet still expect to find health advice on YouTube or TikTok. According to an article published by Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, “Gen Z is the first generation to grow up surrounded by digital devices, and they expect their health benefits to be digital, too. From choosing a benefits package to finding a provider, Gen Z wants to take care of their health on their own terms. And that may just include video chatting with a doctor from the back of an Uber.”
In its 2022 US Digital Health Survey, research firm Insider Intelligence found that “Half of Gen Z adults turn to social media platforms for health-related purposes, either all the time or often.”
“Gen-Z will make up 31% of the world’s population by 2021 and they have deeply formed perceptions and beliefs … This has led to an amazing change in the way Gen-Z is disrupting several industries simultaneously,” wrote Bernhard Schroeder (above), a clinical lecturer on integrated/online marketing at San Diego State University, in Forbes.
What Can Clinical Laboratories Learn from These Findings
Gen Z seeks accuracy and trustworthy information. “Gen-Zers’ natural penchant for skepticism and frugality—coupled with low levels of confidence in the US healthcare system—makes them less likely to trust providers, more likely to research prices before seeking care, and more apt to worry that their health insurance won’t cover their treatment,” Insider Intelligence noted.
According to Contract Pharma, “Gen Z is concerned with holistic health and self-care, rather than a one size fits all pharmaceutical approach. They share a hesitancy for traditional healthcare models but with very interesting differences. By understanding these differences, the consumer healthcare industry can focus on agile and distinctive brands to harness Gen Z’s tremendous purchasing power.”
Savvy clinical laboratory leaders can better serve their Gen-Z client physicians and patients by better understanding why Zoomers are more inclined to order their own lab tests (without a physician), collect their own specimens to send into labs, and/or collect their own specimens to do home testing (think COVID-19 self-test kits). Zoomers may need an entirely new business model from their healthcare providers, including clinical laboratories.
Recruiters should target five personas for hiring new talent and retaining existing staff, McKinsey says, a goal that would be challenging for clinical laboratories recruiting medical technologists
Clinical laboratories and pathology groups continue to struggle filling vacated positions with new hires and retaining adequate staff due to what has been dubbed the “Great Resignation.” The ongoing, pandemic-era phenomenon is seeing people leave their jobs in mass exodus and remains a characteristic of the 2022 labor market.
According to the US Department of Labor, 4.3 million people quit their jobs in January of this year. Of equal significance for hospital and health system medical laboratories with shrinking budgets, compensation rates are increasing for these positions at a steady pace.
This international economic trend continues to affect businesses across the country as workers leave their jobs in record numbers. Especially hard hit are hospitals and clinical laboratories, and recruiters seem at a loss as to what can be done to turn it around.
“This isn’t just a passing trend, or a pandemic-related change to the labor market,” Bonnie Dowling (above), Associate Partner at McKinsey, told CNBC. “There’s been a fundamental shift in workers’ mentality, and their willingness to prioritize other things in their life beyond whatever job they hold. We’re never going back to how things were in 2019.” Clinical laboratory recruiters can attest to that statement as they continue to struggle to fill open positions and maintain staffing levels. (Photo copyright: McKinsey and Company.)
Workers Are Unhappy and Unsatisfied
For their report, McKinsey surveyed more than 12,000 workers located in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, India, and Singapore to determine why they are resigning and what factors would sway them to remain in their positions.
Their findings suggest that 40% of the people in the workforce are unhappy and unsatisfied in their current jobs and are seeking better, more fulfilling employment opportunities. Among those workers who have recently resigned from a job, 41% said lack of opportunity for upward mobility and no pay or benefits was the top reason they quit.
The McKinsey analysts noted certain repetitive occurrences during the past year they attributed to the Great Resignation, which McKinsey calls the Great Attrition:
Reshuffling: Workers are resigning and taking positions in other industries, which is causing some industries to disproportionately lose talent.
Reinventing: Workers are vacating traditional employment and choosing nontraditional roles, such as temporary, gig, part-time work, or they are opting to start their own businesses.
Reassessing: Workers are leaving the workforce entirely to focus on other priorities, such as taking care of children or relatives, concentrating on self-care, or pursuing other interests.
Recruiters Should Focus on Five Unique Personas
As of June 30, there were 10.7 million job openings in the US, according to US Bureau of Labor statistics. And some industries, such as healthcare, are losing talent to other industries.
Among surveyed individuals who quit their jobs between April 2020 and April 2022 in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, 54% accepted a position within another industry or did not return to the workforce, according to McKinsey analysts.
The McKinsey report urges hiring managers to focus on five unique personas in their efforts to target and hire desired talent, and retain them as employees:
Traditionalists: Career-oriented individuals who are the mainstay of the classic labor pool. They are easier to find through common recruitment strategies, according to McKinsey, and are motivated by compensation, benefits, job titles, status, and opportunities for career advancement.
Do-it-yourselfers: These workers are typically 25 to 45 years old and value flexibility above all else when choosing jobs. They want autonomy to establish their own hours and the type of duties they will perform. This includes gig, part-time, and self-employed workers as well as full-time employees in nontraditional roles.
Caregivers: Workers who are at home due to other priorities, but who may be looking for an opportunity to re-enter the workforce. People in this group desire companies that are willing to work around their personal schedules. They could be coaxed back into the labor force with part-time options, four-day work weeks, flexible hours, and work-at-home positions.
Idealists: These workers tend to be in the 18- to 24-year-old age range, may be working part-time, or may still be students. These individuals value being part of a community and are most easily swayed by companies that have a strong organizational culture with an emphasis on meaning and purpose.
Relaxers: People who are not looking for work, but who could be convinced to return to the labor force under ideal circumstances. This group is mostly comprised of early- and natural-age retirees who still have productive years left. They represent the largest percentage of the latent workforce, McKinsey noted. Companies should consider seeking out these seasoned workers who may be more interested in meaningful work than a big paycheck.
“More employers have opened up their aperture in order to meet the yawning talent gap that they’re facing,” said Bonnie Dowling, Associate Partner at McKinsey and one of the authors of the report in an interview with CNBC. “They’re prioritizing skills over educational background or previous job experience, which is creating more opportunities across sectors for job-seekers.”
Four Strategies for Retaining Workers
Finally, the McKinsey report offered four strategies that companies can focus on to retain their existing talent and avoid resignations:
Sharpen traditional employee value status through compensation, benefits, career advancement potential, reputable job titles, and the overall prestige of the organization.
Build creative, nontraditional, value propositions revolving around flexibility, a strong company culture, and more personalized methods of career progression.
Expand and tailor talent-seeking approaches to woo nontraditional workers.
Invest in more meaning and belonging in the company’s culture to build stronger teams and relationships among workers.
“It’s everything from embedding flexibility in our credo to reassessing how we value our employees and provide them with the resources they need to do their job. All employers have the capacity to make these meaningful changes,” Dowling said. “But we have to start taking action, as opposed to sitting back and hoping that things are going to return to a ‘pre-pandemic norm’ because all signs point to the fact that they won’t.”
The ongoing labor shortage is affecting many industries, but it has been especially hard on healthcare and clinical laboratories.
Clinical laboratory recruiters may want to begin looking at the shifting economic scene in the US as an opportunity to restructure workplaces and create a better model to avoid resignations and retain workers.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the 1918 influenza (aka, the Spanish Flu) pandemic took place worldwide between 1918 and 1919. It was caused by the H1N1 virus (A/H1N1), a subtype of the Influenza A virus, and infected approximately 500 million people worldwide (a third of the human population at the time). Fifty million people died. Many were children or otherwise healthy individuals, but people from all age groups perished.
The CDC calls the Spanish Flu the “deadliest pandemic of the 20th century.” Past pandemics have generally concluded after 2.5 to 3.5 years. That’s how long it takes for new viruses to mutate and become endemic diseases, Healthline reported.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been around for about that long. It stands to reason the natural end of the COVID-19 pandemic may be just around the corner. But is it? And is the Omicron variant an indicator that the COVID-19 pandemic is winding down?
“Our analysis suggests that in the US, this combination of characteristics would lead to Omicron replacing Delta as the dominant variant in the next few months and to a higher peak burden of disease than the country saw in the second half of 2021 (but likely below the peak reached in the winter of 2020-21),” the report states.
McKinsey analysts also acknowledged the possible impact of new therapeutics, COVID-19 vaccine booster doses, and public health measures on Omicron spread. “In the short term, an accelerated rollout of booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines is likely to be one of the best protections against an Omicron-fueled wave of the disease,” the analysts wrote.
Does How the Spanish Flu Came to an End Mirror the COVID-19 Pandemic?
Virologists and infectious disease experts explained that the Spanish Flu virus did what viruses still do: mutate and become less dangerous. Herd immunity also helped end the 1918 pandemic.
“The 1918 influenza virus eventually mutated to the point of not having a high number of deaths—eventually over three years or so. We may very well be witnessing this process with ongoing variants of SARS-CoV-2,” virologist Rodney Rohde, PhD, Director of the Clinical Laboratory Science Program at Texas State University, told Healthline.
Today’s flu strains have “ancestral links” to the 1918 flu, and thus, the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus will most likely also leave its mark, The Boston Herald reported. “The coronavirus will evolve and hopefully morph into a seasonal illness to which we pay little mind, but it’s still too early to tell,” Todd Ellerin, MD (above,) Director of Infectious Diseases, South Shore Health, South Weymouth, Mass., told The Boston Herald. (Photo copyright: Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger.)
“If you think about the way viruses behave, biologically, their reason for living is to replicate and spread, and there’s really no advantage for the virus to kill the host,” infectious disease specialist Keith Armitage, MD, Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at Case Western Reserve University, told Healthline. “The hope is, that if the pandemic doesn’t go away, we will get new variants that are highly contagious but don’t produce much of a clinical illness,” he added.
In “2021’s Top 10 Lab Stories Confirm Important Trends,” Dark Daily’s sister publication, The Dark Report (TDR), posed a similar question in its number one story of 2021: “COVID-19: Will it Become Endemic and a Respiratory Virus that Shows Up Every Year like Influenza?”
“The question of whether SARS-CoV-2 is a pandemic that fades, as did SARS in 2003, or becomes endemic and a respiratory virus that shows up every season like influenza and the common cold, is of major concern to clinical lab administrators. That’s because clinical labs and pathology groups must continue to serve physicians and patients with the usual menu of routine, reference, and esoteric testing,” TDR noted.
Clinical Laboratories to Continue COVID Testing
It would be most helpful for medical laboratories and pathology groups to have some idea of when the pandemic will end. Unfortunately, such predictions would not be very useful.
“Since COVID-19 infections have a high number of asymptomatic transmitters, we may not fully understand how societal and environmental pressures—masks, distancing, remote working, etc.—on the virus will allow it to evolve,” Rohde told Healthline.
For now, clinical laboratories will need to continue to remain prepared as COVID-19 cases rise and people seek SARS-COV-2 tests, vaccinations, and treatments. COVID-19 testing is likely to be in demand throughout the coming year. The current surge in demand for COVID-19 tests is putting additional stress on the supply chain.
“We know pandemics end; it’s just a matter of time,” Sara Paton, PhD, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Wright State University, told the Journal-News. “It could be in 2022, maybe later in the year, but I can’t say for sure. It could be 2023.”
The latest McKinsey report addresses when the COVID-19 pandemic is “most likely” to end and what needs to happen to get there
Clinical laboratory leaders, pathologists, and diagnostics professionals everywhere want to know when the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus will burn itself out. When can we expect to return to normal? Since there is no such thing as a crystal ball, it might be helpful to review the latest report from international management consulting firm McKinsey and Company, titled, appropriately, “When Will the COVID-19 Pandemic End?”
It’s a good question, and McKinsey is not certain of the answer. Barring other factors, McKinsey predicts “Transition toward normalcy in the United States remains most likely in the second quarter of 2021 and herd immunity in the third and fourth quarters, but the emergence of new strains and a slow start to vaccine rollout raise real risks to both timelines.” The report also states, “the emergence of more-infectious variants of SARS-CoV-2 increases the risk that this milestone will not be achieved until later.
“More-infectious viruses,” McKinsey continued, “require that a higher percentage of people be simultaneously immune to reach herd immunity. While a more infectious variant likely means more people are acquiring natural immunity through infection (despite ongoing efforts to minimize new cases), the net impact of more-infectious strains is likely to be that a higher portion of the population needs to be vaccinated, which may take more time.”
Challenges That May Slow Herd Immunity to COVID-19
“It is now harder to imagine the United States or United Kingdom transitioning to normalcy before second quarter 2021 or reaching herd immunity before third quarter 2021,” McKinsey added. “Herd immunity to a pathogen is achieved when a sufficient portion of a population is simultaneously immune to prevent sustained transmission.”
But problems in [COVID-19] vaccine distribution, supply shortages, and intermittent participation by the population could push the pandemic endpoint to 2022, cautioned McKinsey.
“We believe herd immunity in the United States is still most likely in third or fourth quarter 2021, but that the chance of delay until first quarter 2022 or beyond has increased,” the report states, “Even later herd immunity remains possible if other challenges arise, especially vaccine safety concerns or ambivalence to vaccination following a transition toward normalcy.”
Other factors that went into the firm’s “most likely” set of possible timelines include:
“Unexpected safety issues emerging with early vaccines,
“Significant manufacturing or supply-chain delays,
“Continued slow adoption,
“Further mutation [of the virus],
“A shorter-than-anticipated duration of vaccine-conferred immunity.”
The graph above, taken from the McKinsey and Co. report, illustrates how “the probability of reaching COVID-19 herd immunity in the United States is highest in the third or fourth quarter, but could shift.” (Graphic copyright: McKinsey and Company.)
A ‘Transition Toward Normalcy’
In its report, McKinsey notes that “During this transition, controlling the spread of SARS-CoV-2 will still require public-health measures (such as continued COVID-19 testing and mask use in many settings), but mortality will fall significantly, allowing greater normalization of business and social activities.”
In apparent agreement, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project, as of Jan. 27, 2021, 107,444 people were hospitalized in the US with COVID-19, as compared to 130,000 hospital cases on Jan. 13, 2021. Numbers of new cases appear to be dropping, however, McKinsey predicts that “COVID-19 will not disappear during this transition but will become a more normal part of the baseline disease burden in society (like flu, for example), rather than a special threat requiring exceptional societal response.”
It may help that more people are taking one of the vaccines. A recent survey conducted by London-based research and analytics firm YouGov, found that people worldwide are becoming more willing to take the COVID-19 vaccine. For example, in the UK, 80% of those surveyed gave a thumbs-up to getting vaccinated, compared to 61% in November. In the US, however, still only about 45% said they will get the vaccine, up slightly from 42% who said so in July, YouGov reported.
However, McKinsey points out that “vaccine rollout has not yet proceeded far enough to protect much of the population.”
How Should Medical Laboratories and Other Healthcare Providers Proceed?
In “No One Said it Would Be Easy,” Jan. 22, 2021, Becker’s Hospital Review, Michael Dowling, President and CEO of Northwell Health, wrote, “We will be living in a world preoccupied by COVID-19 and vaccination for many months to come … And the stark reality is that the vaccination rollout will continue well into the summer, if not longer, while at the same time we continue to care for hundreds of thousands of Americans sickened by the virus. Despite the challenges we face now and in the coming months in treating the disease and vaccinating a US population of 330 million, none of us should doubt that we will prevail.”
“To achieve that,” McKinsey notes, “we will need to see significant progress on the epidemiological end point … Favorable findings on natural and cross-immunity would help accelerate timelines.
“Five additional criteria will also contribute to the transition to a form of normalcy—the more of these that are achieved, the faster the milestone is likely to be reached:
“Continued improvement by governments in the application of public-health interventions (such as test and trace) that don’t significantly limit economic and social activities.
“Compliance with public-health measures until we achieve herd immunity.
“Accurate, widely available, rapid testing that effectively enables specific activities.
“Continued advancements in therapeutics (including pre- and post-exposure prophylactics) for and clinical management of COVID-19, leading to lower infection-fatality ratios—substantial progress has already been made through a combination of effective drugs, such as Dexamethasone and Remdesivir, and changes in clinical management.
“Public confidence that there aren’t significant long-term health consequences for those who recover from COVID-19.”
Finally, McKinsey notes that “Both the epidemiological and normalcy ends to the COVID-19 pandemic are important. The transition to the next normal will mark an important social and economic milestone, and herd immunity will be a more definitive end to the pandemic. In the United States, while the transition to normal might be accomplished sooner, the epidemiological end point looks most likely to be reached in the second half of 2021.”
It is not clear when clinical laboratories and pathologists will know for certain when the pandemic’s end point has been reached. Predictions coming from sources such as McKinsey’s latest report may be as close as we get to a crystal ball view of the pandemic’s future.
