Labcorp's investments are based on the company's unique vantage point. "We have an ability to focus on what we know," Mrs. Watters said. Based on experience, the company's knowledge spans operations, customer needs, as well as real-time feedback on gaps and problems that need to be solved. As both an operator and an investor, Labcorp sees the opportunity to accelerate and scale innovation, as well as de-risk strategic initiatives.
Organizations can use innovation to address critical problems
Roundtable participants discussed areas where innovative solutions can help health systems adapt to changing needs from patients, providers and communities.
Improving access to care
Expanding care access through convenient at-home, near-home or point-of-care solutions is a top priority for healthcare organizations that Labcorp collaborates with. "There is a wide range of ways that we are either collecting samples or offering testing at alternative collection locations," Mrs. Watters said.
This range of options offers value not only to individuals, but also to accountable care organizations (ACOs), clinically integrated networks and other at-risk/shared-savings providers. For example, if a provider is deploying home nurses to check on patients with certain diseases or special needs, having those nurses administer a test while they are in the patient's home can be convenient for the patient and cost-effective for the organization.
"It's about how we make use of the ecosystem that is already evolving, but in a way that is all use case-driven," Mr. Vaughn said.
Labcorp's focus on working closely with health systems and innovative companies in adjacent spaces also helps to improve access to testing and care. For example, Labcorp and one of its portfolio companies are collaboratively working to support health systems in community settings with limited infrastructure to conduct clinical trials. The collaboration is enabling clinical research as a care option for underserved patients.
Another Labcorp portfolio company is working with independent pharmacies to help screen potentially high-risk populations for common and chronic health conditions, in connection with local health systems. Many of those individuals are more likely to seek higher-level, more expensive care if they are not preventively screened.
Improving provider workflows
Labcorp is focused on innovations that are easier, more cost-effective and faster, as well as seamlessly integrate with existing technologies and workflows. This focus aligns with needs that roundtable participants expressed; several described the imperative for new innovations to integrate with EHRs, or providers won't use them. In this vein, Labcorp reduces clinician burden by integrating its platform with organizations' EHR systems and feeding patients' lab results directly into the EHR.
"Engagement with all of the different pieces along the patient journey allows us to innovate in areas beyond laboratory reagents or instruments, all the way through report delivery and the actionable content that we're sharing," Dr. Boles said.
Mrs. Watters explained that, beyond diagnostic testing, Labcorp offers services that provide vital information that helps the entire healthcare ecosystem—patients, providers, health systems, pharma and more—make important decisions and provide data-driven precision medicine.
Adapting to market shifts
Breakthrough technology can also help health systems manage health needs related to large-scale societal trends (e.g., the aging U.S. population, the shift to remote work).
In some cases, those trends are exacerbated by other tendencies of geographic areas, such as Florida and Delaware, which attract a large number of retirees and remote workers. As a result, local health systems are buckling under the pressure of health demands of growing populations and are increasingly incapable of attending to those needs in ambulatory settings.
"We are investing in ways to try and meet those needs via telehealth, but also through technologies that allow us to reach people in their homes," one roundtable participant said, offering examples such as devices that provide remote monitoring capabilities.
Roundtable recommendations and key considerations
Modern solutions that respond to healthcare organizations' current clinical, operational and financial challenges—as well as broader societal trends—can't come soon enough.
Labcorp's proactive and openly exploratory approach to finding and delivering solutions—often through pilots and iteration—suggests that forward-thinking organizations can expect positive results that fit within existing operations.
For those organizations still unsure of or weighing their options, some recommendations from the executive roundtable included:
- Aim for a laboratory whose back-end technology is interoperable with the organization's EHR system, to show a whole-patient view without overburdening clinicians.
- Borrow best practices from retail and technology companies.
- Balance short-term success with long-term investments.
- Collaborate with other healthcare providers regardless of status (e.g., nonprofit, for-profit, academic, community or industry) to improve the health and lives of patients and communities.
- Create structures that facilitate continuous innovation, such as gamification or patient advisory councils. This is also a sign of highly innovative entities.
- Identify and implement innovations that fit within the organization's existing workflows.
- Don't just focus on technologies and innovations, but on how these innovations are accessed and delivered.