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Lewis Dark: Managed Care's Next Evolutionary Step
Managed care is in the midst of shifting from a volume-buying
discount club to a value-added partner in healthcare. During the past two years, The Dark Report has identified
developments in the marketplace supporting this trend and provided these insights to our client and regular readers.
Further proof of this shift in the business model of managed healthcare
are the value-added initiatives underway at UnitedHealth Group, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At last month's Executive War College in Cincinnati,
Dr. Richard Migliori "wowed" the crowd with his discussion of how UnitedHealth Group was using detailed clinical data sets to stimulate significant
improvements in the quality of care provided to its 15 million beneficiaries. You can read his comments on pages 9-14 of this issue.
Dr. Migliori is Chief Clinical Strategist at Ingenix, a business division of
UnitedHealth chartered with the task to develop new healthcare tools based on clinical information. Obviously laboratory test data plays an increasingly
important role in this comment: "Eventually the requirement that the clinical laboratory data be shipped to us in a usable format will be universal."
For years, both lab administrators and pathologists have regularly stressed the lab
data, when properly gathered and studied, holds fantastic potential to radically improve the quality of care even contributes to a lowering of healthcare
costs. Now, after 15 years of delivering that message, there are influential players in the healthcare community taking notice of this fact.
This set up an interesting situation. As health insurers, health systems, and
government health programs become increasingly willing to fund the development of new ways to gather, store, analyze, and use lab data, will lab administrators
and pathologists be willing to invest in the resources necessary to deliver that data in a usable form?
It's time for the lab community to step to the plate and develop value-added services
built upon lab test data. As demonstrated by UnitedHealth Group, the appetite of payers and health systems for useful information is growing rapidly.
Reimbursement for these services will grow proportional to their value in improving healthcare outcomes.
LIS Sales Decline in 2000 As Labs Shift Emphasis
Health Systems moving to integrate clinical systems and
doctor access
CEO
Summary: The Dark Report's annual ranking of the Top Ten LIS Vendors reveals that sales of new LIS products declined for the second consecutive year. This is evidence
that the influence of multi-hospital health systems is changing the way LIS is purchased and implemented. It is also evidence that LIS buyers are moving with
caution, as they watch the growing influence of the Web and e-health services.
UnitedHealthcare Using Lab Data to Improve
Health Outcomes
CEO
Summary: Managed Care is shifting into a new operational model that places prime emphasis on using clinical information to drive improvements in the quality
of healthcare. At UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest health insurers, early efforts to analyze clinical data have stimulated worthwhile
improvements in the physician treatment patterns. Laboratory Corporation of America is feeding increasingly detailed lab test data sets to UnitedHealth
as part of this effort. Here's a look at how and why UnitedHealth Group is pushing hard to develop these resources.
U of Minn Pathologists Organize Tissue
Archives
Over 100 years of autopsy reports, slides, and
tissue going into electronic data base.
CEO
Summary: Pathologists at University of Minnesota Medical School are working to create an electronic data base that covers the more than 100 years of autopsy cases that have been
archived and stored. Their goal is to use this information to improve teaching and to further research into the evolving nature of many diseases.
Dark Index
Investors Pump $107 Million Into
Unilab's Stock Offering
California laboratory company's
shares open at $16, then move rapidly to $23
Intelligence:
Late-Breaking Lab News
Houston Floods:
Tropical storm Allison hammered Houston and
East Texas over the weekend.
Airlines Want to Eliminate Dry Ice: The Dark Report recently provided exclusive intelligence about Friobox, a new packaging system for frozen and chilled
specimens that doesn't require dried ice.
Decode Genetics and Roche Find Gene
Involved in Diabetes and Stroke:
Here's an example of the intersection of genomics, therapeutics, and diagnostics.
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