Changes coming for Core Lab

William Olson
Chief Executive, Providence Oregon

I want to share with you the news that we are making some changes with our Core Lab and outreach business, which provides patient lab services to our hospitals and clinics in Oregon and in the nearby Southwest Washington area.

After several years of thoughtful evaluation of our lab business, including the changing landscape of health care, and a formal discernment which addressed Mission, ethics, patient, and community considerations, we have made the decision to divest the Oregon Core Lab to Labcorp. 

I want to highlight a few significant points about this transaction:

• We are selling our lab outreach and routine clinical laboratory services, including clinical pathology, located at POP 3 and our lab patient service centers throughout the region. Oregon Core Lab operations will remain at POP 3 under Labcorp’s operations.
• We are not selling our rapid response hospital-based labs, anatomical pathology services and system genomics. 
• Our human resources team will work closely with Core Lab caregivers who will transition to Labcorp as part of this divestiture to ease their way. 
• We expect the transaction to be complete in late summer, pending regulatory review. 

I want to assure you the proceeds of this sale will remain in Oregon and support critical investments in our hospitals, clinics, and the care of our community. 

Labcorp is a leading global laboratory network and is already a key lab partner to Providence in other markets. Labcorp’s mission is to “improve health and improve lives” by driving innovation through technology and science. This is in strong alignment with our Mission, vision, and values. We are working closely with Labcorp to ensure the service they provide our hospitals and clinics will be seamless during and after the transition and will be the same excellent quality we experience today.

Daily, Providence caregivers meet the challenge in front of them. Each of us looks for ways to serve compassionately, with respect and integrity and with good stewardship. Our commitment to being a highly reliable organization includes changing as needed to provide excellent care and meet the demands of the times. We have faced mounting pressures on our laboratory services, including a reduction in reimbursement, significant changes to protocols from CMS and commercial payers, and changing market dynamics. These challenges accelerated a review of the future of the Core Lab, which led to the above decision. 

I want to thank all our Core Lab and outreach caregivers who have provided invaluable service to our patients over the years. I know many of you have helped and will be helping with the transition. I recognize this will not be easy, and I am grateful for your continued commitment through the process.