Media Coverage

Welcome to the "Lessons from the C-suite" series, featuring Advisory Board President Eric Larsen's conversations with the most influential leaders in health care.[CR-LF][CR-LF]In this edition, Steve Rusckowski, chair, president, and CEO of Quest Diagnostics, talks about how diagnostic information services can inflect the country's $3.6 trillion in health care costs, the unexpected upside of the Theranos misadventure, and how Quest is thinking about the drawbacks—and benefits—of the landscape-changing regulatory shift known as PAMA.

Over the past year, I’ve spent time outside of the office helping two uncles, both of whom are struggling with medical conditions exacerbated by their advanced ages. This has been neither a burden nor an obligation; I consider it a privilege to be able to help provide loving care for the two of them.[CR-LF][CR-LF]According to a recent survey by Quest Diagnostics, 2 in 5 older Americans with chronic conditions reported that they do not tell their doctor about loneliness, isolation, transportation barriers and other factors that influence health, with many admitting they "struggle to stay on top of my health issues and need more support."

Further, physicians may not be as prepared as they think when it comes to spotting signs of misuse: 83% of physicians believe they're able to adequately screen for prescription drug misuse, yet more than half of all patient test results processed by Quest Diagnostics for prescription drug monitoring showed signs of misuse.

A New Jersey federal judge on Friday gave her initial approval to a $195,000 deal in a proposed class action against Quest Diagnostics Inc. over a November 2016 data breach that exposed the personal information of about 34,000 customers.

There’s at least some data to back that up, according to (the aptly-named) Dr. Barry Sample, a senior director at Quest Diagnostics, a company that conducts more than 10 million workforce drug tests annually.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Sample leads the team that analyzes those tests. He said from 2015 to 2018, the number of drug tests performed that included marijuana dropped across the country, but most prominently in states where recreational weed is legal.

Quest Diagnostics and the bioinformatics company Hc1 have unveiled Quest Lab Stewardship, a service that uses machine learning to harmonize laboratory testing across health care systems in an effort to improve lab test utilization.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Quest Lab Stewardship “integrates in real-time with enterprise systems and leverages Hc1’s machine-learning capabilities to ingest, organize, and normalize lab data, alleviating the time and effort of manual data gathering and analysis,” according to a press announcement from Quest. “It also provides a framework for lab directors and hospital administrators to consult with medical staff to identify areas of concern and implement compendium updates and order prompting based on selected clinical guidelines.”

If you've been prescribed pain pills and think doctors are avoiding you as a new patient, you just might be right. [CR-LF][CR-LF]A large percentage of primary-care doctors (81%) say they're hesitant to accept new patients who've been prescribed pain meds, a newly released survey shows. Even more (83%) say the opioid crisis makes it harder to treat pain patients.[CR-LF]The new report, Drug Misuse in America 2019: Physicians Perspectives and Diagnostics Insights on the Evolving Drug Crisis, shows findings indicating that the opioid crisis continues to have a major impact on physicians and people in pain.

If you've been prescribed pain pills and think doctors are avoiding you as a new patient, you just might be right. [CR-LF][CR-LF]A large percentage of primary-care doctors (81%) say they're hesitant to accept new patients who've been prescribed pain meds, a newly released survey shows. Even more (83%) say the opioid crisis makes it harder to treat pain patients.[CR-LF]The new report, Drug Misuse in America 2019: Physicians Perspectives and Diagnostics Insights on the Evolving Drug Crisis, shows findings indicating that the opioid crisis continues to have a major impact on physicians and people in pain.

While reporting financial results for the third quarter on Tuesday, Quest Diagnostics Inc. (DGX) raised its earnings and adjusted earnings guidance for the full-year 2019. For fiscal 2019, the company now projects earnings in a range of $5.48 to $5.53 per share and adjusted earnings in a range of $6.45 to $6.50 per share on net revenues of about $7.72 billion.

Almost three-quarters of primary care physicians believe that their patients will take their controlled medications as prescribed, but more than half of drug-monitoring lab tests show signs of misuse, according to a new report from Quest Diagnostics.

There’s still a lot of work to do to bring the nation’s opioid crisis under control, but the health care industry needs to wake up and realize it’s only a matter of time before the same thing happens with a new drug. Over-prescribing other drugs could result in a new crisis, which is why prescription drug monitoring and additional training about the challenges of addiction is so critical for doctors.

Quest Diagnostics, Secaucus, NJ, and the precision testing company hc1, Indianapolis, have introduced a service to optimize the use of laboratory tests. Called Quest Lab Stewardship, the strategic collaboration will use the hc1 machine-learning platform to improve the clinical impact and cost of laboratory testing, both in and out of hospital settings.

Recognizing that safety concerns are paramount as decriminalization of cannabis continues in states throughout the U.S., the National Safety Council calls on employers to restrict cannabis use for those in safety sensitive positions – regardless of whether cannabis consumption is allowed by their state. In a policy position released today, NSC defines safety sensitive positions as those that impact the safety of the employee and the safety of others as a result of performing that job. Marijuana is the most frequently used illicit drug of abuse in the U.S. and the drug most often detected in workplace drug testing according to Quest Diagnostics.

Most primary care physicians (62%) fear the opioid drug crisis will be traded for a new prescription drug crisis and nearly three quarters (72%) worry that chronic pain patients will turn to illicit drugs if they do not have access to prescription opioids, according to a new Health Trends™ report from Secaucus-based Quest Diagnostics. Seventy percent of primary care physicians wish they had more training on how to taper their patients off opioids.

Recreational marijuana use is now legal (or about to be) in 11 states and Canada. Driving under its influence is not. But if police suspect someone is driving high, they’ll have a difficult time proving it: Marijuana tests typically rely on urine samples, take days to analyze, and may only indicate that someone has used marijuana over the past days or even weeks, not whether they are actively impaired. Marijuana is the most commonly flagged substance in workplace drug tests, according to Quest Diagnostics, which sells testing services to employers. Nearly 3% of all screenings the company processed in 2018 tested positively for the drug (4.4% of screenings tested positive for any substance).

Recreational genealogy firm Ancestry has partnered with Illumina and Quest Diagnostics to expand into health-related genetic testing. [CR-LF][CR-LF]The company today announced two services: AncestryHealth Core, which is available immediately and uses microarray genotyping performed by Illumina, and AncestryHealth Plus, a membership-based offering that will be available for customers in a few months using next-generation sequencing conducted by Quest Diagnostics. Physicians in telemedicine firm PWNHealth's network will review and approve customer orders based on online questionnaires , at which point patient saliva samples will be sent to the labs for analysis and reporting.

In June of 2018, Mark Pennington received troubling news from his ex-girlfriend, with whom he shared custody of their 2-year-old son. She had taken a hair follicle from the boy, she said, and had it analyzed at a lab. A drug test had returned positive for THC, the intoxicating compound in marijuana; evidently their son had been exposed to it, presumably in Mr. Pennington’s presence. He was told that, from then on, he would be permitted to see the child only once a week, and under supervision. [CR-LF]Barry Sample, the senior director of science and technology at Quest Diagnostics, the biggest purveyor of drug tests in the country, said he was familiar with the problem outlined in the 2012 paper, but said Quest Diagnostics did not use that methodology. “We use a different analytical procedure,” Dr. Sample said.

Genealogy giant Ancestry is getting into the business of healthcare. On Tuesday, the company announced two health products: AncestryHealth Core and AncestryHealth Plus, which can help users of the company's DNA test get a sense of their family health history. AncestryHealth Core will cost $149 — or $49 if users have already taken an Ancestry test — while Plus will cost $199, and additional quarterly updates after the first six months will cost $49 fee every six months. Here's what's included in the reports. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. For the first time, family-history website Ancestry will tell you about your genetic health.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Users who have already submitted their spit to Ancestry before don't have to submit a new samples. The products will take about 6-8 weeks to report after ordering, even for those who have already taken the Ancestry test. The company said it plans to have the Plus program available widely in 2020. To perform the next-generation sequencing test, Ancestry's partnering with lab-testing firm Quest Diagnostics.

More than half of the US.. states and roughly one-third of major U.S. industries saw their rates of workforce drug test positives climb over the past three years – with positives hitting their highest rates in 2018 in more than a decade, according to a series of recent reports from Quest Diagnostics.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Oregon, Maine, Vermont, Alabama, Louisiana and Massachusetts had the highest rates of positive results for urine-based drug tests, according to Quest's analysis of more than 10 million screenings for illicit substances. Across the country, 4.4% of the analyzed drug tests yielded positive results in 2018. In Oregon and Maine, however, more than 6% of the tests were positive last year.

Since 1988, federal regulations have required commercial drivers to submit urine samples for pre-employment, random, and post-accident testing for prohibited drugs.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Twenty years on, the Government Accountability Office (the investigative arm of Congress) published a study outlining serious challenges confronting the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in its oversight of the drug-testing program:[CR-LF][CR-LF]In more than 9% of compliance reviews conducted between 2001 and 2007, carriers had no drug-testing programs at all.Quest Diagnostics reported earlier this year a rise in urine specimens reported as invalid suggest more efforts to cheat.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Drug-testing labs are getting more sophisticated about catching cheaters, but at the same time cheaters are getting smarter about how they try to game the system.

Historically low unemployment rates and increasing marijuana use has led some employers in states where recreational cannabis is legal to drop their zero-tolerance policies.[CR-LF][CR-LF]But not everyone is ready to make the leap.[CR-LF][CR-LF]As Illinois readies for recreational marijuana to become legal on Jan. 1, employers here are being told to consider how a zero-tolerance policy may affect their ability to recruit workers.[CR-LF][CR-LF]“Unemployment is so low that employers cannot insist on a zero-tolerance policy,” said Curtis Graves, staff attorney for the Denver-based Employers Council not-for-profit. The council has surveyed Colorado employers every other year since 2014 when recreational use of cannabis was legalized in the state.[CR-LF]Marijuana positivity increased by 75% from 2013 to 2016 in the general U.S. workforce, according to the Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index. Nearly 9% tested positive in 2016, according to Quest.

Q&A with David Freeman. Most people I talk to in pharma and biotech know that Quest Diagnostics is a leader in laboratory diagnostic services. What they often don’t know is the depth of the company's experience and capabilities in data, analytics and services across the development continuum. Beyond having over 48 billion clinical lab results in its database, Quest has 2,250 patient service centers, increasingly in retail locations, 20,000 mobile care professionals seeing patients in workplaces and the home. Quest provides services to half the country’s hospitals and physicians roughly a third of the adult U.S. population every year. The Clinical Insights portfolio started in 2015 with dialogue between Quest data scientists and medical directors with researchers in pharma who were trying to understand large patterns in disease progression, diagnosis and treatment. Those dialogues, which continue to this day, produce rich insights and customized at-scale data sets and analysis used for research and the planning of new therapeutic launches.

Op-ed: Is blockchain the technology that’s going to fix healthcare’s many problems? Potentially. But not now. Not even close. Before we can fix healthcare with blockchain, we need to break down the barriers that are preventing blockchain from fixing healthcare. The Synaptic Health Alliance pilot has been a cue about blockchain’s future in healthcare. Led by healthcare giants Aetna, Ascension, Humana, MultiPlan, Optum, UnitedHealthcare, and Quest Diagnostics, the program plans to use blockchain to reduce administrative costs and improve data quality. Early this year, other big-time players — Aetna, Anthem, Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), PNC Bank, and IBM — announced a new collaborative that will leverage blockchain technology to enhance interoperability and transparency in healthcare. Many smaller partnerships continue to follow suit. However, it doesn't pay to be a guinea pig.

Hc1's software employs machine learning to prevent health systems from ordering too many or too few tests, a mistake that can lead to missed diagnoses and costly procedures.

According to a new analysis by Quest Diagnostics, one-third of U.S. industry sectors experienced year-over-year double-digit increases in workforce drug positivity between 2015 and 2018, with marijuana as the most commonly detected drug. The Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index is an analysis of more than 14 million urine drug tests of the general U.S. workforce in 17 different sectors.

Quest Diagnostics, through its Cleveland HeartLab subsidiary, has entered into an agreement to purchase for $8.5 million certain assets of bankrupt testing firm True Health Diagnostics.

Michigan is preparing to usher in a new era with legal recreational marijuana sales in 2020, but the state's largest employers say their pre-employment drug screenings that include cannabis will not change. The state's residents already are failing pre-employment drug screening tests at a rate higher than elsewhere in the nation. According to Quest Diagnostics data, the numbers of people who didn't pass pre-employment drug screenings and likely lost potential job opportunities has increased by 31% from 2014 to 2018, and jumped more than 20% between 2017 and 2018, alone. A Quest Diagnostics scientist said the numbers suggest a spike in marijuana use.

Americans largely don't trust the healthcare system to secure their data, and one doesn't have to dig hard to find out why. In 2018, the healthcare sector retained the dubious honor of being the industry with the most data breaches, and less than a quarter of the country trusts health systems to protect their information, according to an August survey by the Harvard T.H. Chain School of Public Health. HHS first began requiring healthcare providers and their business associates to publicly disclose data breaches involving 500 people or more roughly a decade ago. Last year, nearly 300 breaches exposed the records of 11.5 million patients, and one single cybersecurity breach this year hitting the billing collection vendor for lab giants Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp affected the data of nearly 20 million patients.

Laboratory testing is one of the most commonly performed medical activities with, according to the American Clinical Laboratory Association, some 7 billion tests ordered each year.[CR-LF][CR-LF]A substantial number of those tests are likely unnecessary, however. A 2013 meta-analysis published in Plos One, for instance, found that roughly 21 percent of lab test orders represented over-utilization, meaning they didn't add information that was useful to patient careAt the same time, the study put the test underutilization rate at almost 45 percent, indicating that in a substantial proportion of cases, potentially useful tests are never used.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Also last week, Quest Diagnostics announced it had developed in collaboration with bioinformatics firm Hc1 a test utilization optimization system using Hc1's machine learning technology.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Called Quest Lab Stewardship, the product is part of Quest's broader move into providing lab management services for hospitals and health systems.[CR-LF][CR-LF]The system uses guidelines developed by the ABIM Foundation's Choosing Wisely initiative to assess the appropriateness of test orders combined with Hc1's data analysis and integration capabilities to help hospital systems make more effective use of that appropriateness data.

A truck driver who says he took CBD oil for injuries to his hip and back that he suffered in a vehicle accident is suing the company that produced the product, alleging mislabeling.[CR-LF][CR-LF]The lawsuit says that the label stated the product contained no THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the compound in marijuana that produces a high. But following a random drug screening, Douglas Horn, of New York, was told by his employer that he tested positive for THC, his lawsuit states.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Employees subject to random drug tests need to be especially careful, said Barry Sample, director of science and technology solutions for Quest Diagnostics, a global diagnostic test and information network.

The National Business Group on Health presented 50 employers with 2019 Best Employers: Excellence in Health & Well-Being awards at its Workforce Strategy 2019 Conference in San Diego this week.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Now in its 15th year, the Best Employers: Excellence in Health & Well-Being awards recognize employers with exceptional commitment to improving their employees’ overall well-being, productivity and quality of life. The awards program incorporates a wide range of well-being contributors including financial security, mental and physical health, social connectedness and community involvement. Quest Diagnostics is listed as a Gold member.

The rate of newly diagnosed acute and chronic hepatitis B virus infections in women of childbearing age has significantly increased in some Appalachian states, despite overall national rates that have declined or remained stable.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Researchers suggested that injection drug use and waning HBV vaccine effectiveness may be contributing to this trend. “Women of childbearing age represent a priority group for HBV viral elimination efforts due to the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HBV,” Harvey W. Kaufman, MD, MBA, FCAP, senior medical director of medical informatics at Quest Diagnostics, told Infectious Disease News. “Higher rates of acute and chronic HBV among women of childbearing age may increase the rates of HBV infection among infants.”

Quest Diagnostics confirmed it has been cleared in US District Court for the Central District of California Western Division of misappropriating trade secrets from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in developing a serological test for irritable bowel syndrome.[CR-LF][CR-LF]A jury last week determined that Quest did not steal trade secrets from Cedars-Sinai or breach its contract with the hospital when it developed an IBS test similar to one developed by Cedars-Sinai researchers.

Quest Diagnostics announced today that Manuel O. Méndez has been named Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer effective October 7, 2019.

Positive DOT drug tests will be tracked in the new Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse database.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Photo courtesy Quest Diagnostics.The federal Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse is finally rolling out in January 2020. This electronic database that will track commercial driver’s license holders who have tested positive for prohibited drug or alcohol use, as well as refusals to take required drug tests, and other drug and alcohol violations. In addition, when a driver who has been found to be in violation completes the required return-to-duty process, this information will also be recorded in the clearinghouse.[CR-LF][CR-LF]The clearinghouse has long been sought as a way to keep commercial drivers who have violated federal drug and alcohol rules from lying about those results and simply getting a job with another motor carrier.

Hospitals frequently license the research and development from their physicians to generate what can be substantial revenue.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Indeed, intellectual property is the bread and butter investment for many academic and nonprofit health systems, helping to bring in some return while allowing physicians, who often develop those innovations themselves, to retain some benefit. Earlier this year, Mayo Clinic said it has generated $600 million in revenue from licensing its IP since 1986.[CR-LF][CR-LF]The dispute between Cedars-Sinai and Quest Diagnostics involves a noninvasive blood test to detect IBS developed by Cedars-Sinai doctor Mark Pimentel.

Quest Diagnostics, the world's leading provider of diagnostic information services, and hc1, the bioinformatics leader in precision testing, unveiled Quest Lab Stewardship powered by hc1, an innovative new service that employs machine learning to harmonise laboratory testing across health systems in order to help optimise laboratory test utilisation.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Quest Lab Stewardship is the result of a strategic collaboration between Quest and hc1 focused on improving costs and clinical impact of lab testing, in- and out- of hospital settings.

Delaware Health Information Network and Quest Diagnostics have been working together for some time, and the network now has extended Quest’s participation as a data provider in Delaware, submitting lab results and clinical data to DHIN. With the new agreement, Quest results will be available to healthcare practitioners statewide through DHIN delivery channels and the Community Health Record’s searchable patient catalog, with the goal to give doctors more actionable information to improve outcomes. Formed in 2007, the Delaware network now offers nearly 20 services.

Quest Diagnostics and hc1 developed a new service that employs machine learning to harmonize laboratory testing across health systems in order to help optimize laboratory test utilization. [CR-LF][CR-LF] Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on Quest Diagnostic's website. [CR-LF][CR-LF]Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX), the world's leading provider of diagnostic information services, and hc1, the bioinformatics leader in precision testing, today unveiled Quest® Lab Stewardship™ powered by hc1®, an innovative new service that employs machine learning to harmonize laboratory testing across health systems in order to help optimize laboratory test utilization.*

Quest Diagnostics and Hc1 are collaborating on a service called Quest Lab Stewardship, which will use Hc1's machine learning technology to help optimize laboratory test use. The technology will collect and analyze laboratory data to improve management of test usage and identify inappropriate or inefficient testing.

Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX), the world's leading provider of diagnostic information services, and hc1, the bioinformatics leader in precision testing, today unveiled Quest® Lab Stewardship™ powered by hc1®, an innovative new service that employs machine learning to harmonize laboratory testing across health systems in order to help optimize laboratory test utilization.*

Delaware Health Information Network and Quest Diagnostics have been working together for some time, and the network now has extended Quest’s participation as a data provider in Delaware, submitting lab results and clinical data to DHIN. With the new agreement, Quest results will be available to healthcare practitioners statewide through DHIN delivery channels and the Community Health Record’s searchable patient catalog, with the goal to give doctors more actionable information to improve outcomes. Formed in 2007, the Delaware network now offers nearly 20 services.

A recent study has demonstrated that machine learning methods can sort out which laboratory tests used in hospitals may have greater patient-care value, and which ones don't.[CR-LF][CR-LF]The study, which was led by Stanford University researchers and published this week in JAMA, analyzed data from 191,506 inpatients at three different hospitals to predict which diagnostic lab tests are medically unnecessary.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Just this week, laboratory testing firm Quest Diagnostics and healthcare solutions company Hc1 announced a partnership to analyze lab data to manage test usage and identify areas where lab tests are inappropriately ordered.

Quest Diagnostics and bioinformatics firm Hc1 yesterday announced a collaboration that has resulted in a service for optimizing lab test utilization across health systems.[CR-LF][CR-LF]Called Quest Lab Stewardship, the service uses hc1's machine learning technology to collect and analyze lab data, allowing systems to better manage test usage and identify areas where usage is inappropriate or inefficient.

Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX), the world's leading provider of diagnostic information services, and hc1, the bioinformatics leader in precision testing, today unveiled Quest® Lab Stewardship™ powered by hc1®, an innovative new service that employs machine learning to harmonize laboratory testing across health systems in order to help optimize laboratory test utilization.*

Secaucus-based Quest Diagnostics, a provider of diagnostic information services, named Manuel O. Méndez senior vice president and chief commercial officer, effective Oct. 7.[CR-LF][CR-LF]“Manuel is a seasoned and dynamic leader with more than 25 years of experience in diagnostics and life sciences,” said Jim Davis, executive vice president, General Diagnostics at Quest. “His deep understanding of health systems and other customer segments will enable us to build on Quest’s strong Commercial foundation.”

One might not expect a dairy company to be a top innovator when it comes to providing healthcare to its employees, but Dallas’ Dean Foods has an award winning benefits plan that is keeping quality high while flipping eight percent annual increases to outright annual reductions.[CR-LF]The company wanted to increase preventative care, and said that if employees and dependents wanted to keep benefitting from their subsidized healthcare from Dean, they needed to get an annual physical, meaning their healthcare costs would nearly double. Partnering with Quest Diagnostics for biometric data, they learned a great deal about their employees from the physicals. That year, the number of annual physicals went from 3,200 to 27,000.

Quest Diagnostics and bioinformatics company Hc1 have announced the debut of Quest Lab Stewardship.

Secaucus-based Quest Diagnostics announced Tuesday that Manuel O. Méndez has been named senior vice president and chief commercial officer.[CR-LF][CR-LF]The provider of diagnostic information services said the appointment will be effective Oct. 7.[CR-LF][CR-LF]“Manuel is a seasoned and dynamic leader with more than 25 years of experience in diagnostics and life sciences,” Jim Davis, executive vice president, General Diagnostics, said. “His deep understanding of health systems and other customer segments will enable us to build on Quest’s strong Commercial foundation.”

Lab testing giant Quest Diagnostics has teamed up with healthcare data analysis company hc1 to try to prevent health systems from ordering too many or too few tests, the organizations announced Wednesday.[CR-LF]The Quest Lab Stewardship service aims to arm providers with the tools to order the right tests, retrieve results quickly, interpret them accurately and ensure reimbursement. The service integrates with the electronic medical record to guide doctors as they order test, creates a systemwide set of tests and analyzes utilization trends.