Although many community healthcare providers have decided that it’s more cost effective to sell their labs and outsource laboratory services, Cayuga Medical Center in New York is bucking that trend, shares Mayo Clinic Laboratories.
Cayuga Medical Center is challenging that narrative. Instead of selling, Cayuga is investing in its lab — which it considers a value center as well as a key part of patient service.
“I can’t overstate it—having a community-based laboratory is an essential element of the value proposition of Cayuga Medical Center,” says Chief Executive Officer Marty Stallone, M.D. “In an era of accountable care, having the ability to rapidly and accurately generate lab-related data for physicians in our community, with decision support along the way, is instrumental.”
Based in Ithaca, New York, Cayuga Medical Center is a not-for-profit provider of comprehensive primary and secondary care for a service area of about 200,000 patients. Describing itself as a “hospital on the move,” Cayuga has doubled its lab business over the past decade, turning the lab into a profit center.
The lab’s success rests on collaborative relationships forged with both larger and smaller institutions. Cayuga Medical Center partners with Mayo Clinic Laboratories for certain highly specialized lab tests and decision support on lab operations. At the same time, Cayuga provides lab services for a clinically integrated network of nearby community health care providers.
Read more from Mayo Clinic Laboratories.
