All non-hospital lab testing will be done by private services once a request-for-proposals process is completed by the provincial government. The lab at the hospital will then only handle testing for its own patients.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
gslade@medicinehatnews.com@MHNGillianSlade
Alberta Health Services has issued a request for proposals to transition its laboratory collection services to private contractors and there are also implications for Medicine Hat’s hospital.
The transition applies across the province and not only for community collections sites.
On-site hospital testing at Medicine Hat Regional Hospital will only be for hospital patients, an AHS spokesperson confirmed.
“Our expectation through the contracting initiative is that in larger communities such as Medicine Hat, all community lab services will be provided by dedicated community patient service centres, and hospital labs will no longer be required to serve community patients,” the AHS spokesperson said.
Other than the hospital site, Medicine Hat currently has one other collection site on Carry Drive, which is operated by AHS.
The transition to private contractors was identified as a way to save money in the Ernst & Young review of AHS, released about a year ago.
“We need to seek opportunities for innovation and consider ways of doing things differently to ensure Albertans continue to receive the highest quality of laboratory care, and the greatest value from every dollar invested in the healthcare system, both now and in the years ahead,” said Dr. Verna Yiu, AHS president and CEO.
The RFP requires successful proponents to assume all current staff that will be impacted by the transition, unionized and non-unionized, on the same or similar terms.
On Friday afternoon AHS would not say how many staff in Medicine Hat would be affected.
“Further details about how many staff could be impacted and the terms of their transition will be known after the contract has been awarded and a transition plan is developed,” said Kerry Williamson, spokesperson for AHS.
Contracts are expected to be awarded in the spring next year with a full transition taking place in 2022.
Alberta Health has previously stated it will not be clear how much can be saved by the transition until there are responses to the RFP.
Five years ago AHS ended a contract with a local private lab service, Medicine Hat Diagnostic Laboratory. The purpose, it said, was to save $6.5 million.
A 2015 AHS document says the savings would be accrued by not having AHS plus MDHL equipment and staff, centralizing management functions, computer systems being consolidated into the hospital’s lab and eliminating duplication of fees, processes and accreditation. There would also be economies of scale when purchasing supplies.
The change required building a larger outpatient lab at the hospital and an AHS outpatient collection site leased and renovated on Carry Drive. It opened less than four years ago.
The AHS initiative in 2015 began under the previous conservative government and was executed under the NDP.
AHS has never revealed the cost of renovations required for its facility on Carry Drive other than to say the lease on the building plus renovations and utilities was $170,000 annually. What portion of that amount was the renovation has never been revealed nor how long it would take to pay the renovation costs. The cost of building a larger outpatient lab at MHRH has also never been revealed.
