Special Focus: The Rise of Consumerism: Labs Must Address Convenience, Price, Value In Patient-Centric Delivery Models

Strong consumer trends are reshaping how patients access and purchase health care. The coming year is expected to be a pivotal one as health care companies transform their business strategies to address the growing importance of the end user. Experts say that in order to survive this transition, laboratories must act now to address this cultural shift by considering such issues as convenience and price transparency. “As patients become more sophisticated purchasers of health care, they will push competition in health care delivery to look increasingly like that in consumer-goods industries,” write Robert S. Huckman, Ph.D., and Mark A. Kelley, M.D., in a perspective piece published Oct. 16 in the New England Journal of Medicine. “This competition could lead to product offerings that appeal to consumers with different needs. While some patients may seek greater odds of survival, others may seek a faster return to work or lower out-of-pocket costs. These options are at the core of ‘patient-centered’ care.” Early manifestations of these trends can be witnessed in shifting delivery models and laboratories’ adoption of information technology systems capable of integrating multiple systems to provide additional informational value from laboratory results and unified, real-time financial data for both the patient […]