Sutter Health Moves Laboratory Services In-house

Plan is part of network’s commitment to transform health care quality and cost

SACRAMENTO, Calif., Oct. 16, 2006 - The Sutter Health network announced today that its affiliated not-for-profit hospitals and physician organizations are joining together to participate in the creation of a new shared clinical laboratory. The new Sutter Health shared lab will provide services currently outsourced to a commercial reference laboratory in Southern California, and will be available to provide additional technical expertise to Sutter Health affiliate labs as needed.

“We’re insourcing this testing within our own system where it can be most effectively and efficiently managed,” said Ronald Workman, M.D., vice president of system lab operations. “In fact, we expect the new lab to reduce turnaround time for this special testing by about 25 percent while reducing our affiliates’ lab testing costs by around 15 percent. Our patients will benefit.”

“Our shared lab is just one example of our network’s commitment to transform health care services to the benefit of patients throughout Northern California,” said Sutter Health President and CEO Patrick Fry. “Today’s health care consumers are demanding even higher quality services at a fair price, and we’re responding.”

The new lab, which will be located near the interchange of Interstates 580 and 680 in the Dublin-Pleasanton area, primarily will process those highly specialized tests that aren’t typically done by Sutter’s hospital- and clinic-based labs.

Sutter Health hopes to have a lab site selected by January 2007 and to open the new facility next summer. Once it’s open and running at full speed, the new shared reference lab is expected to employ about 60 full-time employees.

Sutter affiliates participating in the shared lab are Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland and Berkeley; California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco; Camino Medical Group in Sunnyvale; Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley; Eden Medical Center, San Leandro Hospital Campus; Marin General Hospital; Mills-Peninsula Health Services in Burlingame; Novato Community Hospital; Palo Alto Medical Foundation; Santa Cruz Medical Foundation; St. Luke’s Hospital in San Francisco; Sutter Amador Hospital; Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital; Sutter Coast Hospital in Crescent City; Sutter Davis Hospital; Sutter Delta Medical Center in Antioch; Sutter Lakeside Hospital in Lakeport; Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento; Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa; Sutter Medical Foundation in Sacramento; Sutter North Medical Foundation in Yuba City; Sutter Regional Medical Foundation in Fairfield; Sutter Roseville Medical Center; and Sutter Solano Medical Center.

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Contact
Karen Garner
(916) 286-8297
garnerk@sutterhealth.org